Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Land Drainage Provisional Order (No. 2) Bill,

Read a Second time, and committed.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY.

ROYAL MARINES (MAJORS).

Major Sir BERTRAM FALLE: 14.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty if he is aware that before the War a major of the Royal Marines ranked with a lieutenant-commander of the Royal Navy, and received similar pay, prize money, &c, but that some years later his status and pay were raised to that of commander, but that the prize money awarded is that of a lieutenant-commander only; and if he will inquire into this oversight and correct the same?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Amery): My hon. and gallant Friend would appear to have been misinformed. The ranks of Commander, R.N., and Major, R.M., are each allotted 30 shares in the distribution of naval prize money.

BRITISH WARSHIPS, BATUM.

Mr. NEIL MACLEAN: 15.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether there are any British ships of war at Batum; and how many there are, how long they have been there, and what purpose they are serving?

Mr. AMERY: No British man-of-war has visited Batum since the 19th March, 1921, when H.M.S. "Montrose" concluded a five-day visit to the port.

BERMUDA DOCKYARD.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 18.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty the nature of the work in the dockyard at Bermuda which necessitates a staff nearly double that which existed before the War; whether it is proposed to reduce the present staff; and, if so, by what date will the reductions have been effected?

Mr. AMERY: The present staff employed at Bermuda is the minimum necessary to carry out the work there, which is considerably greater and more complicated than before the War.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: How can it be that, with a small Navy, and, apparently, attempts at economy on the part of the Admiralty, there has been more, work?

Mr. AMERY: The disposition of the Navy has been considerably changed since the War, and at this moment we have, on the West Indian station—which embraces the whole of North American waters in both oceans, and, in the absence of a South American squadron, South American waters as well—four light cruisers.

SURPLUS OFFICERS.

Captain Viscount CURZON: 19.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether any statement can yet be made as to what is proposed with reference to officers surplus to requirements, in view of the deep anxiety felt by all officers of the Royal Navy as to their fate?

Mr. AMERY: I hope that it will be possible to promulgate the Government scheme for the reduction of surplus personnel before the end of next week.

PEMBROKE DOCKYARD.

Viscount CURZON: 20.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty what is the total number of the staff now employed at Pembroke dockyard; what is the monthly cost of the dockyard; what work is now being carried out there; and whether this yard is indispensable for naval purposes?

Mr. AMERY: As the reply is somewhat long, I will, with my noble and gallant Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

The following is the reply:

The total numbers employed at Pembroke dockyard, including naval officers, civilian salaried staff and wages staff, are 1,969.

The monthly expenditure on salaries and wages is approximately £29,500.

The total average monthly expenditure on the dockyard cannot be stated without further investigation.

The work now being carried out is as follows:

Oiler "Oleander," under construction.
T.B.D. "Wren," completing construction.
"President," fitting out as R.N.V.R. drill ship.
R.F.A. "Burma," annual refit and docking.

There is also work incidental to the maintenance of the dockyard and local yard craft.

With regard to the last part of the question, I would refer my Noble and gallant Friend to the Memorandum explanatory of the Navy Estimates for 1922–23, which was submitted to Parliament by the First Lord of the Admiralty on 10th March last, and which (on page 11) gives a full explanation of the considerations which led the Government to come to its present decision.

H.M.S. "HAREBELL."

Sir B. FALLE: 21.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether H.M.S. "Harebell," now on service in Murmansk waters, is fast enough for the work and is able to deal effectively with an opposition to the carrying out of International Law which may be anticipated from any quarter?

Mr. AMERY: The answer is in the affirmative.

OFFICERS (COMPULSORY RETIREMENT).

Sir B. FALLE: 22.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty if it is the intention of the Board to compulsorily retire lieutenants and lieutenant-commanders, Royal Navy, who have risen from the lower deck, at the age of 50 instead of 55 as at present; and if he is aware that such an act would be very unpopular and unfair to the Service and the country?

Mr. AMERY: I regret I am not yet in a position to give any information with regard to the arrangements to be adopted for clearing the lists of surplus officers

Sir B. FALLE: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, if this reduction takes place among the men who have risen from the lower deck, it will be said that it is only because they have no social influence behind them?

Mr. AMERY: I would ask my hon. and gallant Friend to await the statement of Admiralty policy with regard to these matters, which I hope will be made public in a few days.

Commander BELLAIRS: 23 and 24.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty (1) whether the Board can elucidate the meaning of the Order-in-Council, published in the "London Gazette" on Friday, enabling the Board to retire naval and marine officers for peculiarity of temper or other defect not amounting to misconduct or not caused by intemperate or irregular habits of life;
(2) whether, under the new Order-in-Council, the Board of Admiralty will be the sole determining authority as to peculiarity of temper sufficient to cause compulsory retirement and as to the rate of retired pay, pension, or gratuity given to an officer retired under these conditions?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 25.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether an Admiralty Order has recently been issued authorising the compulsory retirement of naval officers, irrespective of age or service, for alleged peculiarity of temper, even when no charge of actual misconduct is preferred; who will be the judge of the peculiarity of temper sufficient to justify the professional ruin of these officers; whether the unsupported opinion of the commanding officer at the time being will be accepted as sufficient evidence on which to retire an officer; whether there will be any appeal open to these officers; and if he has considered the power which this order will place in the hands of certain commanding officers over the future of the officers under them unless these officers are safeguarded by an independent authority?

Mr. FOOT: 26.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether an
Order has been made by the Admiralty affecting the compulsory retirement of naval officers on grounds other than those of age and service; and, if so, what are the terms of the Order?

Mr. AMERY: The Order-in-Council, which appeared in the "London Gazette" of Friday, 28th April, enables the Admiralty to place on the Retired List, irrespective of age and service, officers of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines who are considered unsuitable for further employment for reasons other than misconduct. Hitherto it has only been possible to effect the compulsory retirement of officers under what is known as the Misconduct Order-in-Council, which entails forfeiture of not less than 10 per cent, of the retired pay of any officer concerned. The new Order-in-Council is designed to meet the cases of officers whose retention in the Service is undesirable for reasons other than misconduct, and to whom the Misconduct Order-in-Council, with its attendant financial penalties, would, if applied, obviously operate harshly. It has long been the practice to deal with such cases by placing the officers permanently on half-pay, and it is considered that it will be in the interests of the officers, as well as of the Service, that the alternative of retirement shall exist in cases of this kind. The decision in each case will, as in the case of officers retired under the Misconduct Order-in-Council, and officers placed permanently on half-pay, rest entirely with the Board of Admiralty, who naturally will consider most carefully all the relevant circumstances. There is no more reason for supposing that these additional powers will be abused, than there is for assuming that existing powers, which have been used only very sparingly, are abused, and I think it may be taken for granted that no Board of Admiralty will retire an officer under the new Order-in-Council on the unsupported opinion of his Commanding Officer, or, indeed, without very substantial evidence that his retirement is desirable and justified in the interests of the Service. The rates of retired pay to be granted are those with which an officer may retire voluntarily with retired pay, where such retirement is allowed; in the case of lieutenants and lieutenant-commanders, and officers of equivalent rank under 40, the rate will be the same as the non-service rate of
retired pay, with a slight variation in the method of reckoning service. The rates in other cases are under consideration. I may add that the Order-in-Council is quite unconnected with the special retirement measures, the details of which are under consideration by His Majesty's Government, and will shortly be promulgated.

Commander BELLAIRS: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that granting of this despotic power is much resented in the Navy, and is he aware that the Admiralty is compelled to retire an officer who has been two years unemployed?

Rear-Admiral ADAIR: Who is to be the arbiter as to whether these officers should or should not be retained?

Mr. AMERY: Of course the arbiter will be the Board of Admiralty, who will take into consideration very carefully all the information with regard to their various services. This Order in Council has been introduced for the benefit of the officers concerned.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Will the hon. Gentleman answer the last part of my question, whether there is any appeal open to these officers and whether there will be a stigma attached to officers who are retired under this Order?

Commander BELLAIRS: The hon. Gentleman has not answered my question.

Mr. AMERY: I thought I had answered it. It will be to the advantage of these officers that they should be able to go straight away on the footing of full retirement pay and not be kept on half pay till their period of half pay runs out.

Lieut.-Colonel ASHLEY: Will the hon Gentleman consider the desirability of allowing officers who come under these rules to be heard personally in their defence so that they can plead their cause personally?

Mr. AMERY: I will certainly consider that and the point raised by the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy), but their so-called despotic powers are no greater than those exercised by the Admiralty in other respects, always with the greatest care.

Rear-Admiral ADAIR: If the commanding officer makes a report on these officers
as to their fitness or otherwise for duty, will he make it known to the officers concerned before it is sent in?

Mr. AMERY: I should like to consider that too, but we shall certainly not leave it to one commanding officer if he is adverse.

Colonel Sir C. YATE: Is there to be any appeal tribunal?

BOY ARTIFICERS.

Mr. GILBERT: 27.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether, in view of naval reductions, it is proposed to reduce the number of boy artificers now accepted annually for Navy service; if so, can he state in what manner such reductions will take effect; and if it is proposed to reduce the number of places now placed at the disposal of education authorities in the country?

Mr. AMERY: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The reduction will be effected by reducing the number of candidates declared successful on the results of the examinations held annually in April and October. As regards the last part of the question, all candidates recommended by educational authorities are examined in October, and candidates up to the number required are entered in order of merit as determined at this examination. It is not proposed to place any limitation upon the number of candidates that may be recommended by educational authorities, but, as already stated, the number of candidates declared successful on the result of the examination will be reduced.

RECRUITING (BOYS AND YOUTHS).

Mr. GILBERT: 28.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether, in view of the proposed reductions in the Navy, his Department are still recruiting boys and youths for Navy services, and if any reduction is proposed in the number of boys and youths now accepted annually for the Navy; and, if so, can he make any statement as to how it is proposed to reduce recruiting of boys and youths for naval services in the future?

Mr. AMERY: Recruiting of boys and youths for the Navy is entirely suspended. The only exceptions are in the case of boys from Greenwich Hospital School,
who join that establishment with the sole object of entry in the Navy. The number of ratings entered in the Navy in future will depend on requirements at the time, which are considered in connection with the Estimates for each year.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRAZIL (BRITISH INVESTMENTS),

Mr. A. M. SAMUEL: 1.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that the Brazilian Government is about to invite the British public to lend it a large sum of money; that the Brazilian Government has, since 1914, defaulted in its obligations to British subjects by suspending till 1927 its contracts with regard to sinking funds on most of the previous Brazilian loans; and whether he has requested the British firms acting for the Brazilian Government to inform that Government that the British Government regards with disfavour maltreatment of British capital entrusted to foreign Governments on the faith of pledges given by such Governments when they seek financial assistance from British subjects?

Sir ROBERT THOMAS: 8.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is taking any steps to protect British subjects against possible loss by drawing attention to the fact that, contrary to the terms of contract contained in the invitation by Brazil to British subjects to subscribe to the Brazilian Four per Cent. (1911) Loan, the Brazilian Government has since 1914 dishonoured its obligation to repay by means of a sinking fund; and whether, in view of the impending issue in England of a fresh Brazil Government Loan, he has informed the Brazilian Government that the British Government takes note of the injury to British subjects caused by breaches of faith by foreign Governments in commercial transactions?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Earl Winterton, for Mr. Cecil Harmsworth): In consequence of the indisposition of my hon. Friend, I have been asked to answer these questions.
I understand that negotiations for such a loan have been proceeding, but have no official information on the subject. It has not been the practice of His Majesty's Government to interfere with the
flotation of loans by recognised and responsible Governments, and I think that the public interest is best served by allowing these questions to be dealt with, as hitherto, on business lines.

Mr. SAMUEL: Does not the Noble Lord think that the public interest would be better served if the Government now said that they will not allow this loan to be entered into here until the Brazilian Government has made good its contracts with British investors, in regard to which it has defaulted?

Earl WINTERTON: I have already said that I think the public interest will be best served by allowing these questions to be dealt with, as hitherto, on business lines.

Sir R. THOMAS: Does not the Noble Lord think it advisable to warn the British public against these things?

Earl WINTERTON: I should have notice of that question, as I am answering for another Department, but perhaps I may say that I do not think it is the duty of the Foreign Office to warn the public.

Sir R. THOMAS: That is question No. 8, and I ask whether the Noble Lord will do that?

Earl WINTERTON: No, certainly not.

Mr. SAMUEL: Is it not the duty of the Foreign Office to protect British subjects from being, I will not say swindled, but misled by the prospectus of a foreign Government? Is it not the duty of the Foreign Office to protect British investors against the loss of their money?

Mr. N. MACLEAN: Is it not really the duty of the Government to suggest, to those British capitalists who have money to invest, that, before investing abroad, they should invest in industries at home?

Earl WINTERTON: That does not arise out of the questions on the Paper. Any member of the investing public can judge for himself in a case of this sort whether the security put forward is good or bad.

Sir R. THOMAS: rose
——

Mr. SPEAKER: We are now debating the matter.

Oral Answers to Questions — LAWS OF WAR (INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION).

Sir J. D. REES: 2.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Commission to examine and report on the laws of war contemplated by the Washington agreement has actually been appointed; and, if so, who are the members thereof?

Earl WINTERTON: The United States Government have been notified of the appointment of Sir Rennell Rodd and Sir Erie Richards as the British delegates. The much regretted death of Sir Erie Richards has since deprived the British Empire of his services on the Commission, and the post of second British delegate has now to be filled. The United States Government have not yet communicated to His Majesty's Government the names of the delegates apointed by the United States of America, France, Italy and Japan.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHINA (BOXER INDEMNITY).

Mr. L. MALONE: 3.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will consider the possibility of commuting the remainder of the Boxer indemnity, and, with the object of promoting a better understanding between this country and China, apply it, half for the education of Chinese students in Great Britain and half in sending properly qualified and competent English persons out to China to study and report on the conditions prevailing there?

Earl WINTERTON: A committee has been appointed to consider the question of the education of Chinese on British lines in all its aspects. I will see that the attention of the committee is drawn of the hon. Member's suggestion.

Sir J. D. REES: Will the noble Lord represent that the education of Chinese on British lines should not be done at the expense of the British taxpayer?

Oral Answers to Questions — PASSPORTS AND VISAS.

Captain WEDGWOOD BENN: 4.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the British Government is putting into practice the recommendations as to passports and visas made in the London Memorandum of Experts?

Earl WINTERTON: The answer is in the affirmative, subject to reciprocity by other nations.

Oral Answers to Questions — RUSSO-GERMAN AGREEMENT.

Captain W. BENN: 5.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what information was in the possession of the Foreign Office on 17th April last relative to the German-Russian Treaty concluded at Genoa?

Earl WINTERTON: None.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: 52.
asked the Lord Privy Seal at what date the first intimations were received from our Ambassadors as to the negotiations between Russia and Germany; whether any request was sent for further information; and why the Foreign Office did not warn the Prime Minister of the impending treaty?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN (Leader of the House): No information was received by His Majesty's Government, prior to the signature of the Treaty of Rapallo, to the effect that any negotiations had begun which might lead to the signature of such an Agreement in the immediate future. The second and third parts of the question do not therefore arise.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Did not my right hon. Friend tell the House only two days ago that His Majesty's Government did receive information? May not the House know exactly what the information was from the ambassadors to the Foreign Office and why it was not given to the Prime Minister?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I answered the question two days ago, but my hon. Friend does not quote my answer correctly, and perhaps he will be good enough to refer to it.

Colonel CLAUDE LOWTHER: Is there any truth in the report widely circulated in to-day's Press that the Prime Minister has notified M. Poincaré that this country would be ready to enter into an agreement with Russia, even without the sanction or consent of our gallant French allies?

Mr. SPEAKER: That has nothing to do with the question on the Paper.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Will my right hon. Friend lay all Papers on the Table in order that the House may know exactly all that has transpired between the ambassadors and the Foreign Office?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I think that I answered that question.

Oral Answers to Questions — FAR EASTERN REPUBLIC.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 7.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what progress has been made with the withdrawal of Japanese troops from Eastern Siberia and the Maritime Province, in accordance with the pledges given by the Japanese Government at Washington; if he is aware that negotiations between Japan and the Far Eastern Republic have broken down following on an ultimatum presented by the Japanese Government demanding, among others, the right to keep military missions on the territory of the Far Eastern Republic; whether he has seen the terms of this ultimatum; and whether they can be given to the House?

Earl WINTERTON: I have no information regarding the plans of the Japanese Government for the withdrawal of their troops from Eastern Siberia. I am aware that negotiations between Japan and the Far Eastern Republic have been broken off, but I have no knowledge of the alleged ultimatum referred to by the hon. and gallant Member. The remainder of the question, therefore, does not arise.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Are His Majesty's Government completely disinterested in what goes on in Eastern Siberia, and is the Noble Lord aware that we had very important commercial interests there?

Earl WINTERTON: I have no information regarding the question put by the hon. and gallant Gentleman—no information to the effect that what he suggests has occurred has occurred.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is it any use our wasting our time at Genoa trying to make peace with Russia in the West while our Associated Power is doing this in the East?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. and gallant Member is giving his own opinion.

Mr. L. MALONE: 10.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether His Majesty's Government has received a communication by radio from the Russian acting Foreign Commissary Karakhan, sent to the British and American Governments on 29th March, supporting the Note by the Foreign Minister of the Far Eastern Republic Yanson on 13th March, protesting against the action of the self-elected Merkulov Government in Vladivostok selling Russian ships and property and stating that the presence of Japanese military forces makes it impossible for the Far Eastern Government to thwart the White Guard looting of Russian national property, and further protesting that the Allied consulates were arming counterrevolutionary bandits under the pretext of maintaining order; whether any reply has yet been sent; and whether, in view of the agreements concluded at Washington and in the interests of humanity and justice, His Majesty's Government propose to take any action?

Earl WINTERTON: The answers to the first and second parts of the question are in the negative. His Majesty's Government do not propose, therefore, to take any action.

Oral Answers to Questions — DIPLOMATIC AND CONSULAR SERVICES.

Captain TERRELL: 9.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will state the cost of our foreign diplomatic and consular services in the first half of 1914 and the cost now; and the aggregate number of personnel then maintained, and the number now?

Earl WINTERTON: The net cost of the diplomatic and consular services in the first half of 1914 was £417,529, and the estimated net cost for a half-year on the present basis of expenditure £802,472. The aggregate number of personnel maintained then was 502, and the present number is 636.

Captain TERRELL: In view of the fact that the cost now is very nearly double what it was in 1914, can the Noble Lord indicate to the House what hopes there are of a speedy reduction of this amount?

Earl WINTERTON: I must have notice of that question, in order to consult the Department.

Captain TERRELL: Will the Noble Lord represent to the Minister concerned the desirability of appointing a committee of business men to investigate this expenditure?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. and gallant Member should put that question on the Paper.

Oral Answers to Questions — EGYPT (ZAGHLOUL PASHA).

Mr. SWAN: 11.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that the Coptic population of Egypt abandoned the Easter feast this year as a protest against Zaghloul Pasha's deportation; and whether, in view of this manifestation of feeling in
Egypt, Zaghloul Pasha's repatriation will be reconsidered?

Earl WINTERTON: The reply to the first part of the question is in the negative. The second part does not therefore arise.

Mr. SWAN: 12.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether His Majesty's Government, in view of the grave reports concerning Zaghloul Pasha's health, will consider the advisability of his immediate repatriation to his country, which is best suited to his health?

Earl WINTERTON: I have no information of a nature to justify the reports that Zaghloul Pasha's health is suffering, nor have I seen the report.

Mr. SWAN: 13.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has now ascertained that Zaghloul Pasha and his colleagues deported with him handed to the officer who was in charge of them at Aden, on the 7th February last, a written complaint signed by all of them to the effect that they were all at the time invalids, some suffering from diabetes, Bright's disease, and other complaints, and some from illnesses contracted since their arrest, and pointing out that to reside in a hot climate was dangerous to their lives, and asking to be sent quickly to a place less hot and damp than the Seychelles, where also there were no specialists and necessary medical and surgical requirements; whether the officer communicated this written com-
plaint to the proper authorities as he promised them to do; and, if so, what is the decision arrived at?

Earl WINTERTON: The complaint mentioned by the hon. Member in the first part of the question has not yet been received, but I understand that a report on the subject has been asked for.

Mr. SWAN: Is the Noble Lord aware that I asked the Foreign Office about this matter five weeks ago, and was informed that there had been no complaint? Are there any details in regard to the complaint as to the health of Zaghloul Pasha and his colleagues?

Earl WINTERTON: That is what I endeavoured to the best of my ability to answer. I said that the complaint mentioned by the hon. Member had not yet been received, but a report on the subject had been asked for.

Mr. SWAN: That was five weeks ago, and there has been abundance of time. In the light of the widespread apprehension that these men will die there, will there be speedy inquiry into the matter and action taken?

Earl WINTERTON: I will ask the Foreign Office to endeavour to expedite their inquiries and give the hon. Member information, but I think he is under a misapprehension.

Oral Answers to Questions — DISTRAINT FOR RENT, WEST NORWOOD.

Mr. MYERS: 40.
asked the Minister of Health if his attention has been called to the case, of C. W. Outwin, an ex-service man, who up to recently occupied a house at 119, Tivoli Street, West Norwood, erected by the Lambeth Borough Council under the Government schemes, at a rental of 19s. 4d. per week, upon which arrears of rent to the extent of £20 accumulated, due to lack of employment, and for which sum a judgment in the Court was secured against the tenant and not contested by him; whether he is aware that responsibility for the rent was subsequently accepted by the board of guardians, and that the offer was rejected by the Lambeth Borough Council, that later forcible entrance into the house was effected under a distress warrant by persons under the authority of the council, the contents of the house, valued at £60,
taken away and sold, and that the man's wife and four children, age one to 14 years, were compelled to seek the shelter of the Poor Law institution; and whether, having regard to the 2½ years' military service overseas of the man referred to and his low nervous condition arising therefrom, he will make such representation to the Lambeth Borough Council upon the matter as the necessity of the case demands?

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Sir Alfred Mond): As the answer to this question is rather long, I am circulating it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

I have made inquiries of the borough council and understand that Mr. Outwin was a tenant of one of the council houses from 6th June, 1921, to 4th April, 1922, at a weekly rent; that on only eight occasions was the total rent paid and only six other small payments on account of the rent were received during the tenancy; and that no payments at all were received after 14th November, 1921. The total arrears amounted to £31 7s. 1d. Numerous opportunities were given to the tenant to pay off the arrears of rent by means of instalments, but no payment was received. The council received from the guardians no intimation that they were willing to accept responsibility for the rent; in fact, that body notified the council on the 14th December, 1921, that Mr. Outwin was not known to them. The Order of the County Court was applied for on 11th February, 1922. The council now understand that Mr. Outwin was allowed 24s. on the 24th and 31st March for the payment of rent, but no attempt was made by Mr. Outwin to hand this money over or indeed to notify the council that such a sum had been set aside by the guardians for this purpose. The responsibility for administering the housing scheme rests with the council, and I am not prepared to interfere in the matter.

Oral Answers to Questions — CONDENSED MILK.

Mr. DOYLE: 42.
asked the Minister of Health what progress has been made for fixing a standard for condensed milk, whether sweetened or unsweetened, full-cream or skimmed; whether the Report of the Committee on such standards has been or will be issued; and, if so, when?

Sir A. MOND: I would refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave on Monday to the hon. and gallant Member for the Henley Division. I do not propose to publish the Report of the Committee on Condensed Milk Standards.

Oral Answers to Questions — VOLUNTARY HOSPITALS (GRANTS).

Mr. CHARLES EDWARDS: 44.
asked the Minister of Health whether he has received any communications from the Royal Gwent Hospital, Newport, Monmouthshire, and similar institutions, protesting against the decision of the Voluntary Hospitals Commission, which has decided that grants to hospitals shall be based on the income for the year ending 31st December, 1920, or the averages for the three years 1918, 1919, 1920; whether he is aware that for the year 1921, and the immediate following years, it will be impossible to show a similar income owing to reduced earnings of workers and others, which prevents them from subscribing to the same extent: and whether, in order that hospitals should derive some benefit from the £500,000 set aside by the Government, he will take steps to amend the terms and conditions so as to enable this to be done?

Sir A. MOND: I understand that representations in this sense have been made to the Voluntary Hospitals Commission by certain hospitals in South Wales. It was laid down by the Government as one of the fundamental conditions for grant that assistance should ordinarily be based on the amount of new money raised or in sight, and the Commission have no power to vary this rule; but they may make emergency grants in cases where a hospital has exhausted its realisable assets and without assistance would be compelled to close beds.

Oral Answers to Questions — PEACE HANDBOOKS (FOREIGN OFFICE).

Sir J. BUTCHER: 45.
asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the great historical value of the 25 volumes of Peace handbooks which were prepared and issued by the Foreign Office for elucidating the problems which arose in Europe and elsewhere out of the Great War, he will authorise the distribution of sets of
these volumes amongst as many as possible of the public libraries in the large towns of the country?

Earl WINTERTON: The preparation of these handbooks, as to the value of which I share my hon. and learned Friend's opinion, entailed a heavy expense, both editorial and for printing, upon His Majesty's Government, which is now being in part recovered by their public sale. While, therefore, I hope that they will be widely purchased by the public libraries, as well as by private persons, in this country, I do not think that it would be consistent with principles of national economy to recommend a gratuitous distribution of them.

Sir J. BUTCHER: Will there be any surplus of these books?

Earl WINTERTON: I could not possibly say. It depends on the sale.

Mr. INSKIP: Has the hon. Gentleman any information as to the stock of these books, and is he aware that a great many of them are becoming obsolete and out of date through not being disposed of?

Earl WINTERTON: I have no personal knowledge of these books, but I will make inquiries if the hon. and learned Member desires.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Are these books available in the British Museum or any public library?

Earl WINTERTON: I cannot say.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT.

CLEANSES.

Mr. N. MACLEAN: 30.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he can state the reason why cleaners in public buildings have been ruled out of benefit under the unemployment scheme; and whether those contributions which were deducted from their wages prior to this ruling will be returned to them?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Sir Montague Barlow): I am sending my hon. Friend a copy of the High Court decision of 13th January last, under which it is held that this class of employé is not insurable against unemployment. The contributions previously paid in
respect of the employment now held to be uninsurable will be refunded on request, in so far as they exceed the amount of benefit received in the individual case.

FRAUD (PROSECUTIONS).

Mr. MACLEAN: 31.
asked the Minister of Labour the total number of prosecutions for fraud on the unemployment fund for the six months ending 31st March, 1922; and the number of frauds by direct claims and the number on associated claims?

Sir M. BARLOW: During the six months ending 31st March, 1922, there were 701 prosecutions for alleged fraud on the unemployment fund, and 640 convictions were obtained. About 20 of these convictions were obtained against persons who had claimed through associations and the remainder against direct claimants.

Mr. MACLEAN: Does it not follow from those figures that the policy adopted by the Ministry of Health and carried out with the assistance of the trade unions of paying associated benefit has a distinct deterrent effect on any attempt at fraud, and is more useful in finding out whether the applicant is eligible for the unemployment donation?

Sir M. BARLOW: The hon. Member can draw his own conclusions from the figures, but we are obliged for the assistance which the unions give us in this regard.

Lieut.-Colonel NALL: What steps are being taken to improve a system which is so open to fraud?

Mr. SPEAKER: That should be a separate question.

BENEFIT (LEGAL DECISIONS).

Mr. SEXTON: 32.
asked the Minister of Labour if he can give the full legal findings of the High Court on the question of unemployed insurance affecting persons who were previously paying into and receiving benefits from the fund; and what other sections of industry or profession, if any, other than caretakers, who had previously been contributory, are affected by such judgments?

Sir M. BARLOW: I am sending my hon. Friend copies of the High Court judgments to which he refers. It is quite impossible, however, to make any general statement purporting to explain what effect the High Court decisions referred to may have upon other industries and professions; each case must be considered as it arises.

Mr. SEXTON: Would the case of a supplementary teacher at St. Helen come under the same category?

Sir M. BARLOW: These are all cases of difficulty and the considerations applicable to them are all different, and it is impossible to give a general decision until the exact facts of the case are put before them.

Mr. SEXTON: In the case of the supplementary teachers previously obtaining unemployment benefit will their contributions be refunded to them?

Sir M. BARLOW: I think the answer I have given in a rather similar case would apply, but I should like to consider the facts if the hon. Member will put a question down. Generally speaking the principle would be that where the decision of the High Court cuts out a class of persons who were held before that to come within the Act their contributions would be returned to them, subject to any deduction for benefit paid.

GLASS INDUSTRY, ST. HELENS.

Mr. SEXTON: 37.
asked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that uncovenanted benefit has been refused to men working short time, alternative weeks, in the St. Helens glass industry on the grounds that they are not entitled to such benefit by regulation issued in Circular 535, Section 4, Clause 2; that this affects 600 men and their families; and if, in view of the fact that deductions are made from their scanty wages and the hardship of such cases, he will give favourable consideration to their appeal?

Sir M. BARLOW: Under the powers conferred by the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1922, the Minister has decided that uncovenanted benefit should not ordinarily be paid to persons working short time who are earning, on the average, half, or more than half, their normal earnings. Local employment committees may, however, recommend pay-
ment of benefit in cases where the earnings are so low as to justify a grant being made. I am having inquiry made into cases arising at St. Helens, and will communicate the result to my hon. Friend.

NURSES.

Brigadier-General COLVIN: 53.
asked the Minister of Health whether members of county nursing associations, whose employment is permanent, and who have their own pension scheme, will be exempted from contributing to national unemployment insurance?

Sir M. BARLOW: I have been asked to reply. Persons employed as female professional nurses for the sick are, as from 1st July next, excluded from unemployment insurance by the Unemployment Insurance Act recently passed. As regards the effect of this provision in particular cases, I would suggest that full details of these cases should be submitted to the Department for consideration.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTERS' SALARIES.

Captain TERRELL: 46.
asked the Prime Minister whether, to stimulate national economy, he will consider the desirability of a reduction in all Ministerial salaries, and especially those which were raised during and immediately after the War?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The Report of the Select Committee on the remuneration of Ministers recommended increases in certain Ministerial salaries and decreases in others, but no action has been taken on this report, and none is proposed at present; and the only Ministerial salary raised during or immediately after the War is that of the Lord Privy Seal.

Mr. HOGGE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether this Government has at any time dealt with the Select Committee's Report?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I cannot say that. We have been very busily engaged with much more important matters. As the hon. Member knows, the Prime Minister did not think it right that he should accept the increase which the Select Committee suggested in his own case.

Mr. HOGGE: Apart from the Prime Minister, is not the Government going to make a readjustment in the scale of salaries of various Ministers, having regard to the inequalities of salaries for the various offices?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: We have not found time to consider the matter. There is a good deal to be said on the one side and the other. It would probably be convenient, if any alterations are to be made, to make them when a new Government is formed, or when there is a general reorganisation.

Mr. HALLS: Would the Government consider the advisability of adopting a sliding scale in accordance with the cost of living?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: It would have been to the great advantage of His Majesty's Ministers if that suggestion had been adopted. As it is, no con sideration of the cost of living has been allowed to affect the salaries paid to Ministers.

Oral Answers to Questions — SOUTHERN RHODESIA.

Mr. RAWLINSON: 47.
asked the Prime Minister whether, before it is decided to annex Southern Rhodesia, a full opportunity will be given to the House to discuss and vote upon the question?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not think that it is necessary at this stage to consider the provision of a special opportunity for the discussion of the questions connected with the political future of Southern Rhodesia.

Mr. RAWLINSON: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that this annexation dispatch will not be carried through without an opportunity of discussing it in this House?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The hon. and learned Gentleman is asking me about a matter which is primarily in the hands of the Secretary of State for the Colonies. His question was whether an opportunity would be given for discussing the question, and that is why I am answering. My impression, if my memory serves me right, is that the dispatch put two alternatives before the people of Southern Rhodesia, and recommended that a referendum
should be held. When the result of the referendum is known the time would come for consideration as to whether an opportunity for discussion in this House is required or not.

Mr. RAWLINSON: I am asking that the Order-in-Council shall not go through until the House of Commons has had an opportunity of discussing it.

Mr. T. GRIFFITHS: Will the right hon. Gentleman circulate the Papers showing the agreement made between the Imperial Government and the natives of Rhodesia after the Matabele War?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: That question should be put to the Secretary of State for the Colonies.

Mr. RAWLINSON: 69.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the total amount of financial liability which would be incurred by the British Government in case the annexation of Southern Rhodesia is carried out on the terms proposed in the draft letters patent dispatched by the Government to the High Commissioner; and upon what Vote could such expenditure be discussed?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Edward Wood): There is a difference of opinion between His Majesty's Government and the British South Africa Company as to the financial position with regard to the Company's administrative deficit arising out of the decision of the Privy Council in the Southern Rhodesia land case. This difference of opinion may form the subject of further judicial proceedings, and I can only reply, therefore, in the most general terms to my hon. and learned Friend's question. The draft Letters Patent for Southern Rhodesia were prepared on the basis that, should they come into operation, no liability of a financial kind would fall on His Majesty's Government except such as may arise in the event of the Crown using its powers under Article 33 of the Company's Charter to acquire buildings and works. With respect to these, it is impossible to forecast the exact amount involved, but the value of all the existing public works and buildings in Southern Rhodesia was estimated to be some £830,000 as on 31st March, 1918. Clause 51 of the Letters Patent provides for the repayment within 12 months of any
moneys advanced for this purpose. Any provision which Parliament may be asked to make would form part of the Colonial Services Vote.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Will the Colonial Office adhere to the recommendations—I think from Lord Buxton's Committee—that the question of the grant owing to the South African Government should be left to the Law Courts and should not be settled outside by the Colonial Office and the British South Africa Company?

Mr. WOOD: I would rather, since my hon. and gallant Friend invites my opinion on a matter of such importance, that he should put a question on the Paper.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: : In any case no settlement will be come to, without the House being asked to approve of such settlement?

Mr. WOOD: Yes, that is so.

Mr. RAWLINSON: Apart from the payment to the South African Company what liabilities are being taken over by the Government? Do they include payments of judges and so forth?

Mr. WOOD: I am afraid if my hon. and learned Friend wishes to ask me that he should put down a question. It does not arise out of his original question.

Mr. RAWLINSON: That is the original question. I will put it down again.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCHOOL CHILDREN (MEALS).

Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSON: 48.
asked the Prime Minister what steps the Government propose to take to provide for the feeding of those school children who, in the current year, will be deprived of the opportunity of getting meals at school owing to the decision of the Board of Education to reduce the expenditure on school meals which is to be recognised for grant by the sum of £730,000 during the year 1922–23?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The general view of the Government was explained in the answer given by the President of the Board of Education on 4th April to my hon. Friend the Member for North New-
castle. There is no reason at all why the Poor Law authorities should not arrange with the local education authorities to pay the cost of school meals supplied to children of parents who are in receipt of outdoor relief. I believe that an expenditure by the local education authorities of £300,000 will amply cover all the provision of meals which properly falls within the scope of the Act, and when supplemented by contributions from the guardians will meet the needs of the case.

Mr. THOMSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that if meals are provided by the guardians the whole cost will come on the rates, whereas under the education authority half is borne by the Treasury? Is he also aware that what he suggests would penalise the local authorities to the extent of £365,000 additional on the rates?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: My best answer to the supplementary and argumentative question is that it cannot be proper that the Vote's of the Board of Education should be used in relief of the poor rate.

Captain W. BENN: Have not these Votes hitherto borne this very necessary and proper charge, and why should any change be made to the detriment of the poor districts?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Undoubtedly a charge was being placed upon the Board of Education Votes which was never contemplated by the Act itself.

Mr. MYERS: Are we to understand that the feeding of school children in future will only be for those children whose parents are in receipt of Poor Law relief?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: That is not what I said. If the hon. Member will read what I said, he will see that that is not what I said.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT WHIP (SCOTTISH).

Captain W. BENN: 49.
asked the Lord Privy Seal whether he is now in a position to announce any appointment of a Government whip in place of the hon. Member for Argyllshire?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRIVATE BILL PROCEDURE.

Mr. PERCY: 51.
asked the Lord Privy Seal whether he is aware of the strong feeling of dissatisfaction on the part of many public administrative bodies throughout the country at the excessive cost which is at present necessarily entailed in the promotion of Private Bills by councils or industrial corporations for purely local schemes; and whether he will set up a Committee to inquire and report with a view to ensure both greater economy and efficiency as to the practicability, such as by appointing local tribunals from county councils or otherwise, of simplifying the present procedure of inquiry by Parliamentary Committees in London?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The suggestion contained in the question would involve a complete revolution in the present system of Private Bill legislation; and no evidence has reached me of any demand for so drastic a change as would justify me in taking the course proposed by my hon. Friend.

Oral Answers to Questions — MARRIAGE RATE.

Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSON: 54.
asked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been drawn to the reports made by clergymen and others of the big falling off in the number of marriages solemnised at Easter, which they attribute mainly to the impossibility of newly-married couples securing houses; and, seeing that a continued diminution in the marriage rate is a serious menace to the future growth and well-being of the nation, what further steps beyond assisted emigration does the Government propose taking to prevent this misfortune?

Sir A. MOND: I have no special information as to a decline in the number of Easter marriages, and if there was such a decline I should suppose that the existing industrial depression was as powerful a contributory cause as any other As regards further Government housing, I can only refer the hon. Member to my previous statements on the subject.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING, KINGSTON-UPON-THAMES.

Mr. MILLS: 55.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that the Cor-
poration of Kingston-upon-Thames have intimated that the houses erected by them, with financial assistance from the State, are to be sold and will not be let to would-be tenants; whether this decision of the local authority was made with his knowledge and sanction; and whether he will issue an instruction that, in view of the present housing shortage and of the inability of many people to purchase, houses erected under the Government scheme are not to be kept vacant pending purchase?

Sir A. MOND: The answer to the first and second parts of the question is in the affirmative. I have always encouraged the sale of houses by local authorities, and I am anxious that wherever ready sales can be effected, as I am informed is the case here, this course should be adopted. I fully appreciate the objection to keeping houses empty without sufficient reason, and I am in communication with the Council as to the steps to be taken to secure the early occupation of these houses.

Mr. MILLS: Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that the national housing programme initiated by His Majesty's Government had for its object the endowment of houses built for sale, when millions of His Majesty's subjects cannot afford rent much less purchase money, and will he take steps to reconsider that decision having regard to that fact that many urban councils have refused the overtures made by responsible—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order!"]—Order yourself. [HON. MEMBERS: "Speech!"]

Sir A. MOND: I do not know what the hon. Member means. Obviously if there are people who want to buy houses who have the purchase money they will buy houses. I am in favour on behalf of the Exchequer and the local authorities of enabling people to buy houses if the opportunity arises, as this will save a large loss to the Exchequer.

Mr. AMMON: Did not the right hon. Gentleman suggest that these houses should be sold at 50 per cent, of their value, and would not that have the effect of making a present to the property owners at the expense of the community.

Sir A. MOND: I do not think so. The houses will be sold to those who want to occupy them. In the opinion of the
Geddes Committee a great saving to the Exchequer will result if the houses are sold.

Mr. MILLS: The Geddes Committee looked at it from the business point of view, and I am looking at it from the human point of view.

Sir A. MOND: It is just as human for a man to live in a house he owns as to live in a house he rents.

Oral Answers to Questions — SICK BENEFIT (SUSPENSION).

Mr. CHARLES WHITE: 56.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware of the suffering and inconvenience caused to the members of the National Catholic and Thrift Society, at Ashbourne and many other districts, in consequence of the suspension of sick benefit payments, resulting from a decision in recent legal proceedings; and whether, under the exceptional circumstances, he can take any action which will relieve the existing distress in the districts affected?

Sir A. MOND: I have already communicated with the committee of management of the society in question, and am satisfied that arrangements have been made for any members of the central branch of the society, who are entitled to benefits, to obtain payment without any avoidable delay. If the hon. Member will send me, particulars of any case in which a member is unable to obtain benefit to which he is entitled, I will see that the matter has immediate attention.

Oral Answers to Questions — MILK.

Mr. DOYLE: 57.
asked the Minister of Health if any, and, if so, what system of analysis of milk offered for public consumption is practised by the Ministry of Health; if such analysis has been in operation during the last six months; if so, where and with what results; is he aware that analysis and bacteriological examination of milk samples recently taken in the City of Newcastle-on-Tyne, approximately 50 per cent, showed really serious pollution; and what steps he intends to take to counteract such serious menace to the health of the people?

Sir A. MOND: The analysis of milk is not undertaken by my Department, but I am aware of the results stated in recent
reports of the medical officer of health for Newcastle. I am hoping to introduce legislation with a view of effecting a substantial improvement in the milk supply of the country.

Mr. DOYLE: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the last part of the question as to 50 per cent, of the samples taken showing serious pollution?

Sir A. MOND: That is why I propose to get all the information at the earliest possible date.

Mr. DOYLE: Does the right hon. Gentleman intend to take some action immediately?

Sir G. RENWICK: Would the right hon. Gentleman send down a Government analyst to verify or refute the serious statements in the latter part of the question?

Sir A. MOND: I shall be very pleased to do so.

Oral Answers to Questions — RATES PAYMENT (STAMPS).

Mr. GILBERT: 59.
asked the Minister of Health whether his Department approved the action of an eastern county town council, who have allowed local rates to be paid by slips containing postal stamps which could be affixed weekly, or at such times as suit the finances of small ratepayers; whether he is prepared to consider similar proposals for London borough councils, and specially for those districts where compounding has been done away with by the councils, and in consequence great hardships inflicted on weekly tenants, who are now called upon to pay rates direct in monthly or quarterly amounts?

Sir A. MOND: In order to facilitate the collection of the poor rate on small properties I have assented experimentally in one case, subject to the approval of the Postmaster-General, to the adoption of a scheme of the nature described in the question, and I am prepared to give favourable consideration to other applications of a like nature. I may add that I have also assented in a few cases to the trial of a somewhat similar scheme under which the rates may be paid by special municipal rate stamps.

Oral Answers to Questions — KENYA (EXPENDITURE AND TAXATION).

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 61.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to the speech by Sir Humphrey Leggatt, at the meeting of the British East Africa Corporation, in which he refers to the enormous increase in the salaries of officials and taxation of natives in Kenya Colony; whether the expenditure has increased from one to two millions annually; whether interest on the new loan has now to be added; and whether he will appoint a Committee to recommend all-round reductions of expenditure and more equity of taxation in this Colony?

Mr. WOOD: The answer to the first part of the question is in, the affirmative. I do not propose on this occasion to discuss Sir Humphrey Leggatt's figures, which relate to last year, and are in some respects inaccurate. Moreover, they do not show sufficiently the extent to which a nominal increase in expenditure, &c, as reckoned in sterling, is due to local currency changes. The estimate of expenditure for 1921 was £2,371,000, and for 1922 £1,946,000, but important reductions on this figure have already been made. Loan charges will be due when the amount set aside out of the proceeds of the loan for payment of interest pending the completion of the works is exhausted. The burden will fall almost entirely on the Uganda Railway, whose finances are kept separate from those of the Colony. The Governor has already appointed a Committee with the precise objects suggested by the hon. and gallant Member, and he has also within the last month reduced direct native taxation by one-fourth.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Will this Committee appointed by the Governor be able to deal with the Governor's own salary, which has risen, with allowances, to £18,000 a year?

Mr. WOOD: That is one of the inaccuracies in Sir Humphrey Leggatt's figures to which I have referred. The Committee will obviously be able to review the whole thing.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Can we have the actual figures as to the Governor's salary and allowances?

Mr. WOOD: Perhaps the hon. and gallant Member will put down a question on the subject.

Oral Answers to Questions — PALESTINE (GENDARMERIE).

Lieut.-Colonel Sir J. NORTON-GRIFFITHS: 63.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will publish the conditions of service under which ex-members of the Royal Irish Constabulary have entered the British gendarmerie in Palestine?

Mr. WOOD: The expense of publication hardly seems justified in the circumstances, but I shall be happy to supply my hon. Friend and any other Member of the House with a copy of the agreement if they so desire.

Oral Answers to Questions — IRELAND.

MALICIOUS INJURIES (CLAIMS).

Colonel NEWMAN: 64.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Commission to investigate the claims awarded under the Criminal and Malicious Injuries (Ireland) Act has been appointed; and, if so, if it has yet begun its investigations?

The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Sir Hamar Greenwood): The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative, and the second part does not therefore arise. I hope, however, to be able to inform the House of the composition of this Commission next Monday.

Sir J. BUTCHER: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a very large number of poor people whose houses have been burned-and property destroyed, and that they are in great financial difficulties, and will he accelerate the appointment of this Commission?

Mr. SPEAKER: That is the question which has already been answered.

CORK, REBUILDING.

Colonel NEWMAN: 65.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to a statement by the leader of the Provisional Government of Southern Ireland that he had
been able to allot a substantial sum of money to start the rebuilding of that part of the city of Cork that was recently destroyed; and will he say if this money has been paid by Great Britain in accordance with the arrangement recently arrived at between the Parliament of Great Britain and the Southern Irish Provisional Government?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative, and to the second part in the negative.

Colonel NEWMAN: How has this money been allotted if this case has not been investigated?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I must inform the hon. and gallant Gentleman that the revenues of Southern Ireland now flow into the Exchequer of the Provisional Government, and they can spend this money as they wish.

Colonel NEWMAN: Will not the Provisional Government recover this money from the Exchequer?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: That is a matter of accounts. These different questions are settled by the Tribunal whose personnel, it is hoped, will be announced on Monday.

Sir W. DAVISON: Have the British Government admitted any liability in the matter, as has been stated?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I am not aware of any admission of liability.

Ex-CONSTABLES (THREATS).

Colonel NEWMAN: 66.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that ex-members of the Royal Irish Constabulary resident at Carrick-on-Shannon have been under threat of death compelled to immediately leave their homes; and what arrangements have been made to help them and their families under these circumstances?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I regret to state that cases of intimidation of this kind have taken place not only in Carrick-on-Shannon but in a number of other places in the Irish Free State. The Government are of opinion that the most effective assistance they can give to ex-members of the Royal Irish Constabulary so situated is to enable them to transfer their families to Great Britain or Northern
Ireland until such time as they can safely return to their homes or settle elsewhere, and they have accordingly agreed to pay the removal expenses of all married men and their families to any place in this country or in Northern Ireland; and, further, to pay separation allowances to married members of the force in cases where the husband comes to Great Britain and his wife remains in Southern Ireland. A bureau has been set up at Chester for the purpose of assisting them in finding suitable accommodation and for advising them as to the localities in Great Britain in which they are likely to find the best opportunities of obtaining work. The necessary suitable accommodation is available.

Lieut.-Colonel ASHLEY: Are the Government finding any accommodation for these men and their families in vacated barracks, naval or military, or elsewhere?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I am glad to have an opportunity of answering that question. There is more than the required accommodation available in private houses, which are glad to take in members of the Royal Irish Constabulary and their families. Up to the present there is no need of barracks. If there were such a need, the matter would be dealt with immediately.

Lord ROBERT CECIL: Is it proposed to extend a similar measure to the other portions of the population threatened with death in Southern Ireland?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: With reference to the civil population, many of whom have been evicted and some of whom have suffered death, and certainly terrorism, the Government at this moment is considering what can be done. Up to the present, the number of the civilian population concerned is comparatively small. There are, however, cases which are most distressing and demand the sympathy and support of this House.

Mr. RONALD McNEILL: When these Royal Irish Constabulary men and their families elect to come to this country, is any protection given in order that their lives may not be sacrificed on the way?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: Every possible precaution is taken. Up to the present there have not been a hundred ex-members of the old Royal Irish Con-
stabulary who have applied to the Irish Office or to any other official Department for assistance since their disbandment.

Lieut.-Colonel ASHLEY: Is there any truth in the statement that two ex-constables were taken off the boat recently by the rebels in Ireland?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I answered that question yesterday.

Sir C. YATE: What provision is made for Royal Irish Constabulary men who have to leave their homes and furniture behind them? Are they given compensation for their furniture and the break-up of their homes?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I think my original answer covered that. Removal expenses are paid, in addition to free warrants for themselves, their wives and children and normal dependants.

Lieut.-Colonel CROFT: Are they compensated if their furniture is destroyed and burned?

Mr. SPEAKER: Perhaps the hon. and gallant Member will put down that question.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY.

Mr. RAWLINSON: 68.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Government have paid, or promised to pay, any and what sum to the British South Africa Company in respect to Rhodesia?

Mr. WOOD: A sum of £1,940,000 has been advanced in respect of the company's extraordinary war expenditure, pending a decision as to the ultimate liability for this expenditure. The Estimates for 1922–3 include provision for a small further payment on this account. This expenditure relates almost exclusively to Northern Rhodesia. An advance of £150,000 was made as a temporary loan for public works In Southern Rhodesia in the last financial year. Provision is made for a similar advance in this year's Estimates. Apart from these sums, no payments have been made or promised.

Mr. RAWLINSON: Are those merely loans and not payments?

Mr. WOOD: The first large sum would be payment; the last one is a loan.

Oral Answers to Questions — AIR ACCIDENTS (PARACHUTES).

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: 71.
asked the Secretary of State for Air whether Sir Ross Smith was wearing any form of parachute on the occasion of his fatal accident; and what steps the Air Ministry is taking to investigate the possibilities of prevention of accidents by the wearing of parachutes?

The SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Captain Guest): The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. It should be borne in mind that a parachute is only of value where the accident occurs at sufficient altitude from the ground to give time for the occupants to extricate themselves and jump clear of the machine, and for the parachute to open before reaching the ground. In the case of such accidents as that which resulted in the death of Sir Ross Smith, everything happens so quickly that there is no time or opportunity to escape by parachute. In answer to the second part of the question—the possible uses of a parachute in an aeroplane for life-saving purposes is receiving the closest study by the Research Department.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether his Department is likely in the near future to make recommendations in regard to the definite use of parachutes? Will he go as far as that?

Captain GUEST: The suggested limitations to the use of parachutes are already indicated in my reply to the right hon. Gentleman's question.

Oral Answers to Questions — CATTLE (SLAUGHTER).

Mr. BETTERTON: 73.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether his attention has been called to the recent conviction at Nottingham of two men, who were described in the Police Court us officials of the Ministry of Agriculture, for cruelty in connection with the slaughter of infected animals, when one of these men went in amongst the herd with a poleaxe and wounded a heifer above the eye, which subsequently escaped to an adjoining farm and was eventually shot; is ho aware that the same man then fired at four beasts with a shot-gun loaded with No. 6 shot, which then took refuge in the Trent, while another beast, which
had been wounded and an eye blown out, swam across the river, where it was left all night before being despatched, and that the time occupied in the slaughter of 20 animals was from a Friday morning to a Saturday night; whether these men are still in the employment of the Ministry; and whether he will cause instructions to be issued by the Board specifying and limiting the methods of slaughter, and directing that only competent persons be employed, in order to ensure that similar barbarities may be avoided in the future?

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Sir Arthur Boscawen): I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave on the 1st instant to the hon. Member for Kincardine and Western. The statements in the second part of the question differ from the information I have received and, in view of the public interest in this case, I propose to circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT a full report on the matter by one of the Ministry's senior inspectors. The two men who were convicted are no longer in the employ of the Ministry, but I would point out that the butcher concerned has been employed on several previous occasions by the Ministry and, with this exception, has always carried out his work in a competent manner. I need hardly add that I greatly regret the occurrence, but it must be remembered that the Ministry was called upon to deal with a most serious outbreak, which at one time threatened to become epidemic right through the country, and was only stopped by the exercise of very drastic powers. Notwithstanding the difficulties involved, this and one other are the only cases brought to my notice in which the slaughtering was not carried out in a thoroughly humane manner.

Mr. BETTERTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that in future only the humane killer will be used?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: If my hon. Friend refers to the answer I have given, he will see that in all cases in this outbreak we have insisted on the use of humane killers, and no less than 300 of these have been provided. In these cases the humane killer was used until such time as these animals stampeded.

Following is the Report referred to:

Oral Answers to Questions — D.11411—THOMAS TOWERS.

THRUMPTON, NOTTS.

With reference to the criticisms in Press alleging cruelty in slaughter on above premises.

The butchers began slaughtering about 1 p.m. on the 24th March. Slaughtering had to be carried out in a 70 acre field, in the open. The 20 beasts for slaughter were penned in an improvised corral. Three were slaughtered with a humane killer after being roped. The remaining 17 then broke loose and became mad with terror. After a deal of trouble and after two hours' work the butchers managed to get eight back into the corral. One beast made for Mr. Woolley the foreman butcher and he hit it with a pole-axe. This animal was stuck straight away. The remaining seven in the corral became very wild and one jumped the gate. He escaped out of that field and got into another, in which there was no stock. The remaining six also got out of the corral but remained on the infected place. Finding it absolutely impossible to recapture this bullock the police sergeant suggested getting a gun. On the arrival of the gun Mr. Woolley shot dead the beast which had escaped from the infected place. After that Mr. Woolley got a heifer into a coiner and shot that successfully. After this they managed to get the remainder of the herd into a corner, it being impossible to get near them to use the humane killer or rope them. Mr. Woolley knocked three down with the pole-axe, one blow being sufficient for each bullock.

Mr. Woolley succeeded in shooting successfully four more beasts, two barrels being necessary in one instance only. It was then getting dark, and the four remaining beasts were left on the infected place. As these four cattle made for the river Trent Mr. Woolley detailed two men to keep them away from the river and these two men were on duty all night.

The next morning, about 5.30 a.m., Mr. Woolley and butchers tried to round up the four remaining beasts but could not get them within 200 yards of the corral. Mr. Woolley again took the gun and fired at one of the beasts about 9.30 a.m. He only succeeded in slightly wounding it, partly due to the fact that the cartridge was only loaded with small shot. The cartridges which he borrowed were a mixed lot. The wounded beast and the remaining three then made for the Trent. The butchers managed to head off three but the wounded animal swam across.

Mr. Hinman, who was in charge on the infected place, telephoned to me what had happened. I rang up the Long Eaton Police, on whose side of the river the beast was, and requested them to get the animal caught and slaughtered. I then sent Mr. Westgate down to the Long Eaton side of the river but on Mr. Westgate's arrival he found the animal had swum back across the river to the infected place. Mr. Westgate then telephoned to me and said everyone was upset and jumpy. I immediately got
into a car and went down. I found the wounded animal lying under a hedge. It was very wild and again made for the river. We succeeded in heading it off and eventually got it and the three remaining beasts into an improvised corral where I shot them, one cartridge for each beast being sufficient to kill them outright.

No one regrets what occurred more than Mr. Woolley, who is a man who dislikes wounding a pheasant or a hare, let alone a beast.

Mr. Woolley has slaughtered for me under similar conditions, i.e., in the fields on several previous occasions, and has invariably carried out his work humanely and expeditiously. He is recognised as being one of the best butchers in Leicester. In this case it will be noticed that he had to work under very trying circumstances.

After going very fully into all the circumstances it would be unfair to fasten the blame on the butchers or Mr. Hinman who was in charge.

I might mention for the information of the Ministry that none of the escaped bullocks when they broke loose came into contact with any other stock.

(Signed) G. CROKER FOX.

28th March, 1922.

The Secretary,

Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries,

4, Whitehall Place,

London, S.W.1.

Oral Answers to Questions — ITALY AND TURKEY (AGREEMENT).

Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR: (by Private Notice) asked the Leader of the House whether it is a fact that a Treaty has been made between Italy and Turkey; whether the British Government knew that such a Treaty was going to be entered into; and whether any remonstrance has been made to the Italian authorities?

Colenel WEDGWOOD: Why is it, Mr. Speaker, that while this question was put upon the Paper yesterday by another hon. Member, you have allowed him to be anticipated by a private notice question?

Mr. SPEAKER: I did not observe the fact that a similar question was put on the Paper yesterday, and I suppose that must have been the case with other hon. Members. The matter only came to my notice in the Press this morning. That is the reason why I called on the hon. Member for the Scotland Division.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: It was in the Press yesterday morning, Sir.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The Italian Government informed His Majesty's Govern-
ment on 24th April that they had con-eluded an agreement with the Constantinople Government by which the latter undertook to examine favourably Italian applications for certain concessions for railways, mines and public works in Asia Minor, but they have given formal assurances that the agreement contains no counter-concessions or undertakings on their part, and have promised to communicate the text of it to His Majesty's Government as soon as possible.
His Majesty's Government were informed at the time of the Paris Conference that the Turkish Government had made certain proposals to the Italian Government and advised the latter to proceed with extreme caution, but they were not aware that an agreement was about to be concluded, and no information regarding subsequent negotiations was communicated to them. Representations were addressed to the Italian Government through the Italian Ambassador in London on 27th April.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: When the Italian Government communicate to us the text of this agreement, will they be understood to be communicating also any letters relating to or amplifying that text?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I cannot assume primâ facie that when they communicate the text they will withhold other communications which alter the sense of the text.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Can we ask to have these amplifying letters—if such exist—communicated to us at the same time?

Lord R. CECIL: Have the Italian Government given any indication as to what was the consideration for this agreement? Have they given any undertakings?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: They have given formal assurances that the agreement contains no counter-concessions or under takings on their part.

Lord R. CECIL: I do not know whether my right hon. Friend will say whether Mustapha Kemal is a philanthropist or what ground he has had for making these promises, unless some consideration has been given?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The Noble Lord has framed a question on the foreign policy of a foreign Government, and it is a rather delicate matter upon which to give an answer, but his question suggests one of the obvious objections to an agreement of this kind, even though it be wholly one-sided.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: rose
——

HON. MEMBERS: O'Connor!

Mr. SPEAKER: I think it is for me to deal with the question. Colonel Wedgwood.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Could we ask the Italian Government whether there have been any letters accompanying this agreement, similar to those letters between M. Franklin-Bouillon and the Angora Government, which accompanied the French Treaty and seriously modified that agreement?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: We certainly could ask. I will communicate with my Noble Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs as to whether he thinks it desirable that we should. I have assumed from the answer that there could be no such subsidiary correspondence affecting the main agreement.

Mr. O'CONNOR: May I ask if the British Government will not seriously consider whether the discussion and decision of the future relations between Turkey and Greece should not be referred to another tribunal than that which has as two of its members Governments of countries that have made separate treaties with Turkey, one of the parties to the dispute?

Mr. SPEAKER: That raises so serious a matter that I think it ought to be put down on the Paper.

Lieut.-Colonel J. WARD: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that, seeing how little deference has been paid by both the French and Italian Governments to the interests of their chief Ally, Britain, in this matter, it is nearly time the British Government decided to make their own terms without deference or consideration to their Allies, who ignore them so completely?

Mr. SPEAKER: I think such large questions had better be put on the Paper.

SIR CHARLES TOWNSHEND.

Sir CHARLES TOWNSHEND: 50.
asked the Lord Privy Seal, with regard to the refusal of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to grant a passport to the hon. Member for the Wrekin (Sir C. Townshend) to visit Turkey, why the Hon. Member, who would proceed there in a private capacity, may not have the same privileges as are extended to other Members of this House and to other subjects of His Majesty generally?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: My hon. and gallant Friend has repeatedly proffered his assistance to the Foreign Office during the last three years to conduct negotiations, either in a private capacity or on behalf of His Majesty's Government, both at Angora and at Constantinople. While convinced of the entirely patriotic spirit in which these offers have been made, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has been unable to take advantage of them, because he did not feel that the presence of my hon. and gallant Friend would conduce to the ends which, equally with him, His Majesty's Government have in view. Nevertheless, my hon. and gallant Friend has continued to press for passport facilities for Turkey, though he knew well that his intervention was not desired. In these circumstances, the Secretary of State had no alternative but to inform him, as he did on the 27th March last, that such a journey undertaken by my hon. and gallant Friend at the present time would be the reverse of opportune, since it could not fail to be misconstrued, both by our Allies and by Turkey, as an official mission, and, consequently, to prejudice the present negotiations and to delay still further the re-establishment of peace with Turkey; and that in these circumstances he regretted that he must postpone the grant of a passport to those places until a more suitable moment.

Lieut-Colonel ASHLEY: May I ask why a passport was refused to my hon. Friend, when a passport was granted to the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) to visit Genoa? Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull was authorised to negotiate with the Soviet Government on behalf of His Majesty's Government?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Of course, my hon. and gallant Friend knows the answer
to his own question. I will not attempt to state it. There can be no sort of parallel between the position of my hon. Friend the Member for the Wrekin Division (Sir C. Townshend), with the reputation which he enjoys in Turkey, and the interpretation and effect of a visit by him to Turkey in the present situation of that country, and the effect of a visit by the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull to Genoa. Nobody is likely to suppose that the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull carried any authority, direct or indirect, from His Majesty's Government.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Do not His Majesty's Government sometimes regret that they have not taken the, advice both of myself and the hon. Member for the Wrekin with regard to Turkey?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I have never had occasion to regret not following the advice of the hon. and gallant Gentle man.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Then you are hopeless.

Sir C. TOWNSHEND: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that my passport was returned to me with an explanation which, not only in my opinion but in the opinion of many Members of this House, was offensive, and that not only was Turkey obliterated, but the different countries which had nothing to do with Turkey, such as Italy and Spain, where I had occasion to travel for recreation? Does the right hon. Gentleman think that this is a grateful way to recognise my past services or a proper way in which to treat me?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I am not aware of the circumstances.

Sir C. TOWNSHEND: I shall be very glad to show you the passport.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: If my hon. Friend says that that is so, then it is so, but I am not personally aware of the circumstances. I will make inquiry into that aspect of the matter if he wishes. As regards his suggestion that the explanation which he received was offensive, I should be very sorry that either he or any of his friends should so consider it. I have embodied it almost textually in the answer which I have read to the House, and not only was it not intended
to be offensive, but there was nothing in it to give offence. My hon. Friend occupies such a position in those countries that his visit would necessarily attract great attention, and after the proposals which he has made the presence there of a man of such distinction as he could not but embarrass the negotiations and the prospects of peace. It was on these grounds that the Government felt bound to refuse the passport.

Captain GEE: Are passports refused to Members of this House who are not in agreement with the policy of the Government?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Passports have been issued to Members of this House who are very far from being in agreement with His Majesty's Government. The granting of passports is regulated, not by the feelings of His Majesty's Government, but by the interests of the public service.

Captain GEE: Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I give notice that I will ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House.

Mr. REMER: Have not Members of the Labour party been granted passports to go to countries where they have caused great mischief?

Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise out of this question.

At the end of Questions—?

Captain GEE: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, "the final refusal of the Government to name a date on which it is prepared to issue a passport to a Member of this House to proceed to a country in the occupation of British troops."

Lieut.-Colonel W. GUINNESS: On a point of Order. In view of the fact that there is a Debate on a private Member's Motion to-night, and that there are very few opportunities left in this Session for private Members' Motions, might I respectfully ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether, in the event of your accepting this Motion as a matter of urgency, it will not be possible for you to waive urgency and allow it to come on to-morrow night, so as to save the rights of private Members to-night?

Mr. SPEAKER: Dealing with that point of Order, I am afraid I could not do that. A Motion, if proper and accepted by the House, must come on at 8.15. It is a matter for Members whether it happens to come on a private Member's day or not.

Lieut.-Colonel. GUINNESS: May I, on that point of Order, ask whether there has not been a precedent under your Speakership for postponing an Adjournment Motion to meet the convenience of the House, and have you not, Mr. Speaker, on certain occasions consented not to raise the neglect to bring it forward on the first possible occasion as a bar against its being considered on a later date?

Mr. SPEAKER: I have in mind one case of the kind, but that was a case, I think, where the information was not available to the House at the moment, and therefore it was taken on the following day. There was no distinction in that case between a private Member's day and any other day The answer I am just going to give will really show the hon. and gallant Gentleman that it does not arise now. The hon. and gallant Member for Woolwich (Captain Gee) asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, "the final refusal of the Government to name a date on which it is prepared to issue a passport to a Member of this House to proceed to a country in the occupation of British troops." This Motion fails certainly on the ground of urgency, and that, perhaps, will make it unnecessary for me to deal with the other matter, of public importance. From the information given to the House to-day, the matter arose on the 27th March, and therefore clearly it could have been raised the first or, at least, the second day on which the House met after the Easter Recess. I could not countenance a Motion where so much time has elapsed, quite apart from the question of whether I could treat this matter as one of public importance. In regard to the words of the Motion, "to a Member of this House," I think I must treat any citizen the same in a matter of this kind and not make a distinction in favour of a Member of this House.

Captain GEE: Whilst bowing to your ruling, Mr. Speaker, may I respectfully point out that it was requested by the
Foreign Office that the hon. Member should postpone his request on the 27th March, and he did it, and on application a second time he was refused, and that is why the question has been raised?

Mr. SPEAKER: I certainly understood from the inquiries I made that the hon. Member's request was made before the meeting of the House a week ago.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: On the point of Order. Are we to understand that there is no difference in these matters between Members of this House and members of the public?

Lieut.-Colonel CROFT: £400 a year!

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Ought we not to be very jealous of retaining the privileges of Members of this House to travel abroad, even though the Government might not think their voyage abroad is in the public interest?

Mr. SPEAKER: I think there might be such a question if the application had been refused, because the applicant was a Member of the House, but that does not arise here.

Mr. A. HERBERT: May I ask your opinion, Mr. Speaker, on two points? May I ask, first of all, if that decision has not now been given finally; and, secondly, if this question does not involve two things, that the refusal to travel abroad to the hon. Member for Wrekin (Sir C. Townshend) must be based on one of two reasons, either discriminating against him, against his character, as against the rest of the House, or, as that has been, definitely repudiated by the Leader of the House, if it is not a definite attack, not upon the privileges, but upon the liberties of this House, of which you, Mr. Speaker, are the guardian? Does not that constitute a matter of immediate urgency and importance which ought to be decided by the whole House?

Mr. SPEAKER: If that were the case, it would arise in a different form from this. It would not be a Motion under the Standing Order 10, but I do not think it does arise as privilege, as affecting a Member of the House as such. With regard to the hon. and gallant Member's other point, the introduction of the word "final" into this Motion does not, in my
judgment, affect the question of urgency. A decision was made, and it ought to have been raised several days ago.

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE.

Rear-Admiral SUETER: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to subordinate the three fighting Services to a Ministry of Defence.
It is with very great diffidence that, as a comparatively new Member, I submit to this House this Bill subordinating the three fighting Services to a Ministry of Defence. I do so because it is some five months since the Geddes Committee reported to the Cabinet that a Ministry of Defence should be set up. We have been told by the Leader of the House that the Cabinet have little leisure in which oven to glance at the daily papers, and I submit that they have no leisure whatsoever to look into the economical and efficient administration of the three fighting Services. We have suffered in the past from a lack of appreciation of new ideas. I well recollect that when the Master-General of Ordnance some few years ago had to take £10,000 off his estimates he cut down the height of the Farnborough air shed, which was then building, with the consequence that the Lebaudy airship was wrecked. If you take the high horse-power aerial engines, and the large Handley Page aeroplanes, they were turned down by the War Office and were developed by the Admiralty on the opposite side of Whitehall. All the ideas for caterpillar tanks were turned down in January, 1915, by General Sir Scott Moncrief's Committee at the War Office, and it was only when the idea of the Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Churchill) of steam rollers lashed together as weapons for trench warfare proved abortive that the naval airmen came forward with caterpillar machines in February, 1915, and showed by practical demonstrations how to create caterpillar land ships for land warfare. If we had had a Ministry of Defence to go into those new ideas, we should have had caterpillar land ships earlier and in greater numbers. Look at what the War Office did to defend London from air attacks. Before the War they supplied no machines at all, they had only two Maxim guns, and one pom-pom mounted over the administrative centres of London.
It fell to the lot of the naval airmen to come forward and create the first antiaircraft corps for London. If we had had a Ministry of Defence those matters would have been gone into before the War, and we should have had a nucleus ready to be expanded, machines ready, crews, searchlights, and guns ready for the proper defence of London.
If you turn to the other side of Whitehall, the Navy before the War were obsessed with gunnery. They entirely neglected to study the submarine menace. Many of us submarine men told them what would happen if War came, but they paid no attention whatever. If we had had a Ministry of Defence, we should not have had this nation nearly brought to its knees, as it was, by our enemy's submarine campaign We lost 6,000 ships, which represent many thousands of tons of shipping, hundreds' of lives, and we were nearly brought to starvation because of the Admiralty's lack of foresight in not studying the submarine menace of our enemy. I have already said in this House that my gallant comrades in the North Sea were deprived of the fruits of victory at Jutland, because we had no Zeppelin or torpedo aircraft. If we had had a Ministry of Defence, those weapons would have been supplied to the Navy. We have an extraordinary controversy going on in the Press regarding battleships versus aircraft. On this side of the Atlantic we have the First Lord of the Admiralty, speaking in another place, saying that they were hopeful that by gunfire alone it might be possible in the near future to make warships immune against aircraft of any description. On the other side of the Atlantic, we have Admiral Sims saying that the best experts now agree that the results of anti-aircraft firing from a ship are negligible. Both of these high officials cannot be right, and we want a Ministry of Defence to go into these very important subjects.
Many Members of this House have spoken in very high terms of the work of the Committee of Imperial Defence. I endorse every word that they have said. Their very able Secretary, Sir Maurice Hankey, is always ready to help airmen. But the Committee of Imperial Defence have no executive power, and could not give us Zeppelins and torpedo aircraft at the battle of Jutland, nor can they do anything to restrict expenditure. They have no executive power, and they did
not prevent millions of the taxpayers' money being wasted on wild-cat military schemes in Russia. Neither do they in any way prevent the waste of money now going on in Palestine and Iraq. I submit that all that "wants going into by a Ministry of Defence. If we had had a Ministry of Defence, the amateur's hand at Antwerp and the Dardanelles would have been perfectly impossible. The Leader of the House says that you cannot set up a Ministry of Defence, because you would want a super-Minister. I entirely disagree with him. He would make a very good Minister of Defence himself. He has had experience at the Admiralty, and we would soon show him a little air and submarine experience. I think his job now will soon come to an end, and there would be the Ministry of Defence to carry on with. The best argument for the Ministry of Defence that I have been able to find was supplied by the gallant Field-Marshal the hon. Member for North Down (Field-Marshal Sir H. Wilson), who, discussing the air policy of the Government, said:
The fourth decision again I find it difficult to follow. I think that it was this, that in the protection of commerce and in offensive operations against enemies' harbours and inland towns, the' Air is not to be under the Army or the Navy, nor is the Navy to be under the Army or the Air, nor is the Army to be under anybody except itself, but they are to co-operate. The word co-operation translated into action is the way to lose war. The French and British Armies co-operated from the beginning of August, 1914, until the 21st March, 1918, four years ago to-day when the Germans made their great attack. Five days later we passed from co-operation, which had been proved fatal, to victorious war, to one command. Marshal Foch was given command. The difference between co-operation and command is the difference between the loss and the winning of war. Why then do we go back to co-operation when it has been proved fatal to victory in time of war?
That is the soundest argument that I have ever read for establishing a Ministry of Defence. I read in the paper the other day that Canada has already set up a Ministry of Defence to deal with the militia, military, naval, and air services of the Dominion, and place them under single control. I submit that we should follow Canada's example. It is unnecessary for me to go through the Clauses, and I now make my Motion for leave to introduce the Bill.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Kear-Admiral Sueter, Sir Cecil Beck, Colonel Claude Lowther, Major Christopher Lowther, Sir Thomas Poison, Mr. L'Estrange Malone, Colonel Wedgwood, and Lieut.-Commander Kenwortby.

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE CREATION BILL,

"to subordinate the three fighting services to a Ministry of Defence," presented accordingly, and read the First time; to

be read a Second time upon Monday, 8th May, and to be printed. [Bill 106.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Motion made, and Question put,
That the Proceedings in Committee on Empire Settlement [Money] be exempted at this day's Sitting from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[Mr. Chamberlain.]

The House divided: Ayes, 230; Noes, 80.

Division No. 93.]
AYES.
[4.15 p.m.


Adair, Rear-Admiral Thomas B. S.
Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray
Lowther, Major C. (Cumberland, N.)


Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte
Fell, Sir Arthur
Lowther, Col. Claude (Lancaster)


Amery, Leopold C. M. S.
Fildes, Henry
Loyd, Arthur Thomas (Abingdon)


Archer-Shee, Lieut.-Colonel Martin
Fisher, Rt. Hon. Herbert A. L.
Macdonald, Rt. Hon. John Murray


Armstrong, Henry Bruce
Flannery, Sir James Fortescue
Mackinder, Sir H. J (Camlachie)


Ashley, Colonel Wilfrid W.
Ford, Patrick Johnston
M'Lean, Lieut.-Col. Charles W. W.


Baird, Sir John Lawrence
Foreman, Sir Henry
McNeill, Ronald (Kent, Canterbury)


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Forrest, Walter
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.


Barlow, Sir Montague
Fraser, Major Sir Keith
Macguisten, F. A.


Barnett, Major Richard W.
Gee, Captain Robert
Magnus, Sir Philip


Barnston, Major Harry
Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham
Mallaby-Deeley, Harry


Beck, Sir Arthur Cecil
Gilbert. James Daniel
Malone, Major P. B. (Tottenham, S.)


Beckett, Hon. Gervase
Gilmour, Lieut.-Colonel Sir John
Marriott, John Arthur Ransome


Bell, Lieut.-Col. W. C. H. (Devizes)
Goulding, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward A.
Matthews, David


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Green, Joseph F. (Leicester, W.)
Meysey-Thompson, Lieut.-Col. E. C.


Bethell, Sir John Henry
Greene, Lt.-Col. Sir W. (Hackn'y, N.)
Middlebrook, Sir William


Betterton, Henry B.
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Sir Hamar
Mitchell, Sir William Lane


Bigland, Alfred
Greig, Colonel Sir James William
Moison, Major John Elsdale


Bird, Sir R. B. (Wolverhampton, W.)
Gretton, Colonel John
Moreing, Captain Algernon H.


Blair, Sir Reginald
Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. Frederick E.
Morrison, Hugh


Blake, Sir Francis Douglas
Guinness, Lieut.-Col. Hon. w. E.
Morrison-Bell, Major A. C.


Boscawen, Rt. Hon. Sir A. Griffith-
Gwynne, Rupert S.
Murchison, C. K.


Bowyer, Captain G. W. E.
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Murray, Hon. Gideon (St. Rollox)


Boyd-Carpenter, Major A.
Hailwood, Augustine
Murray, John (Leeds, West)


Brassey, H. L. C.
Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)
Murray, William (Dumfries)


Breese, Major Charles E.
Hamilton, Major C. G. C.
Nail, Major Joseph


Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Neal, Arthur


Briggs, Harold
Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)
Newman, Colonel J. R. P. (Finchley)


Britton, G. B.
Harris, Sir Henry Percy
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)


Brown, Major D. C.
Herbert, Col. Hon. A. (Yeovil)
Newson, Sir Percy Wilson


Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.
Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)
Nicholson, Brig.-Gen. J. (Westminster)


Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Hills, Major John Waller
Nicholson, Reginald (Doncaster)


Burdon, Colonel Rowland
Hoare, Lieut-Colonel Sir S. J. G.
Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)


Burn, Col. C. R. (Devon, Torquay)
Hope, Sir H. (Stirling & Cl'ckm'nn, W.)
Norton-Griffiths, Lieut.-Col. Sir John


Butcher, Sir John George
Hope, Lt.-Col. Sir J. A. (Midlothian)
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William


Carr, W. Theodore
Hope, J. D. (Berwick & Haddington)
Palmer, Brigadier-General G. L.


Casey, T. W.
Hopkins, John W. W.
Parker, James


Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton
Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)
Parkinson, Albert L. (Blackpool)


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A.(Birm., W.)
Home, Sir R. S. (Glasgow, Hillhead)
Pearce, Sir William


Clay, Lieut.-Colonel H. H. Spender
Hotchkin, Captain Stafford Vere
Pease, Rt. Hon. Herbert Pike


Clough, Sir Robert
Hunter, General Sir A. (Lancaster)
Peel, Col. Hon. S. (Uxbridge, Mddx.)


Coats, Sir Stuart
Hurd, Percy A.
Pennefather, De Fonblanque


Cohen, Major J. Brunei
Inskip, Thomas Walker H.
Percy, Charles (Tynemouth)


Colvin, Brig.-General Richard Beale
Jameson, John Gordon
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Jephcott, A. R.
Perring, William George


Cory, Sir J. H. (Cardiff, South)
Jesson, C.
Pickering, Colonel Emil W.


Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
Jodrell, Neville Paul
Pilditch, Sir Philip


Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry
Johnstone, Joseph
Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton


Croft, Lieut.-Colonel Henry Page
Joynson-Hicks, Sir William
Pretyman, Rt. Hon. Ernest G.


Curzon, Captain Viscount
Kelley, Major Fred (Rotherham)
Randies, Sir John Scurrah


Davies, Sir David Sanders (Denbigh)
King, Captain Henry Douglas
Rankin, Captain James Stuart


Davies, Sir William H. (Bristol, S.)
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Ratcilffe. Henry Butler


Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)
Lane-Fox, G. R.
Raw, Lieutenant-Colonel Dr N.


Dockrell, Sir Maurice
Larmor, Sir Joseph
Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel


Doyle, N. Grattan
Law, Alfred J. (Rochdale)
Rees, Sir J. D. (Nottingham, East)


Dv Pre. Colonel William Baring
Lewis, T. A (Glam., Pontypridd)
Remer, J. R.


Edge, Captain Sir William
Lindsay, William Arthur
Remnant, Sir James


Ednam, Viscount
Lister, Sir R. Ashton
Renwick, Sir George


Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon)
Lloyd, George Butler
Richardson, Sir Alex. (Gravesend)


Elliot, Capt. Walter E. (Lanark)
Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)
Richardson, Lt.-Col. Sir P. (Chertsey)


Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith
Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (H'tingd'n)
Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)


Evans, Ernest
Lorden, John William
Robinson, S. (Brecon and Radnor)


Eyres-Monsell, Com. Bolton M.
Loseby, Captain C. E.
Rodger, A. K.


Falcon, Captain Michael
Lowe, Sir Francis William
Roundell, Colonel R. F.


Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser
White, Col. G. D. (Southport)


Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Norwood)
Sugden, W. H.
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir M. (Bethnal Gn.)


Sanders, Colonel Sir Robert Arthur
Sutherland, Sir William
Wilson, Col. M. J. (Richmond)


Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.
Terrell, George (Wilts, Chippenham)
Wise, Frederick


Scott, A. M. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)
Thomas, Sir Robert J. (Wrexham)
Wood, Hon. Edward F. L. (Ripon)


Scott, Sir Leslie (Liverp'l, Exchange)
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)
Wood, Sir J. (Stalybridge & Hyde)


Shortt, Rt. Hon. E. (N'castle-on-T.)
Thomson, Sir W. Mitchell- (Maryhill)
Wood, Major Sir S. Hill-(High Peak)


Smith, Sir Malcolm (Orkney)
Tickler, Thomas George
Yate, Colonel Sir Charles Edward


Stanley, Major Hon. G. (Preston)
Townley, Maximilian G.
Yeo, Sir Alfred William


Stanton, Charles Butt
Tryon, Major George Clement
Young, E. H. (Norwich)


Steel, Major S. Strang
Ward, Col. J. (Stoke-upon-Trent)



Stephenson, Lieut.-Colonel H. K.
Ward, Col. L. (Kingston-upon-Hull)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Strauss, Edward Anthony
Ward, William Dudley (Southampton)
Colonel Leslie Wilson and Mr.


Sturrock, J. Leng
Warner, Sir T. Courtenay T.
McCurdy.


NOES.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. William
Grundy, T. W.
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)


Ammon, Charles George
Guest, J. (York, W. R., Hemsworth)
Raffan, Peter Wilson


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Roberts, Frederick O. (W. Bromwich)


Bell, James (Lancaster, Ormskirk)
Hallas, Eldred
Robertson, John


Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)
Halls, Walter
Rose, Frank H.


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Hayday, Arthur
Sexton, James


Bramsdon, Sir Thomas
Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Widnes)
Shaw, Thomas (Preston)


Bromfield, William
Hirst, G. H.
Smith, W. R.(Wellingborough,


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Hodge, Rt. Hon. John
Spencer, George A.


Cairns, John
Hogge, James Myies
Spoor, B. G.


Cape, Thomas
Holmes, J. Stanley
Sutton, John Edward


Carter, W. (Nottingham, Mansfield)
Irving, Dan
Swan, J. E.


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord R. (Hitchin)
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)


Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.
Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, West)


Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)


Davies, A. (Lancaster, Clitheroe)
Kennedy, Thomas
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Lawson, John James
Watts-Morgan, Lieut.-Col. D.


Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)
Lunn, William
Wedgwood, Colonel Josiah C.


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)
White, Charles F. (Derby, Western)


Edwards, G. (Norfolk, South)
Maclean, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (Midlothian)
Wignall, James


Finney, Samuel
Malone, C. L. (Leyton, E.)
Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough, E.)


Foot, Isaac
Mills, John Edmund
Wilson, James (Dudley)


Galbraith, Samuel
Mosley, Oswald
Wintringham, Margaret


Gillis, William
Murray, Hon. A. C. (Aberdeen)
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)


Glanville, Harold James
Murray, Dr. D. (Inverness & Ross)



Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Myers, Thomas
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Graham, W. (Edinburgh, Central)
Naylor, Thomas Ellis
Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy and


Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Newbould, Alfred Ernest
Mr. Lyle-Samuel.


Question put, and agreed to.

NOTICES OF MOTION.

INDUSTRIAL REFORM.

On this day four weeks, to call attention to the necessity for industrial reform, and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. Mosley.]

MOTHERS' PENSIONS.

On this day four weeks, to call attention to the question of mothers' pensions, and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. Kennedy.]

FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

On this day four weeks, to call attention to the conduct of our foreign affairs, and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. A. Herbert.]

SALE OF HONOURS.

On this day four weeks, to call attention to the sale of honours and the increase of such sale, and to move a Resolution.—[Lieut.-Colonel Croft.]

STANDING ORDERS.

Resolutions reported from the Select Committee:

1. "That, in the ease of the London County Council (General Powers) Bill, Petition for additional Provision, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to insert their additional Provision if the Committee on the Bill think fit."
2. "That, in the case of the Exeter Corporation, Petition for Bill, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be 'permitted to proceed with their Bill."

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS,

That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to empower the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the County Borough of Bolton to construct additional waterworks and tramways and to run services of omnibuses; to execute street
improvements; to make further provision in regard to their water, tramway, electricity, and market undertakings; to make further provision for the improvement, health, and good government of the borough; and for other purposes." Bolton Corporation Bill [Lords].

BOLTON CORPORATION BILL [Lords'].

Read the Frist Time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

BILLS REPORTED.

Pilotage Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill,

Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.

Bill, as amended, to be considered Tomorrow.

Legal and General Assurance Society Bill [Lords],

Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table.

Newhaven and Seaford Water Bill [Lords],

Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Tramways Bill,

Nottingham Corporation (Trent Navigation) Bill [Lords],

Ossett Corporation (Water) Bill [Lords],

Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Orders of the Day — WAYS AND MEANS.

Considered in Committee.—[Progress, 2nd May.]

[Sir EDWIN CORNWALL in the Chair.]

Orders of the Day — AMENDMENT OF LAW.

Question again proposed,
That it is expedient to amend the law relating to the National Debt, Customs, and Inland Revenue (including Excise), and to make further provision in connection with Finance.

Mr. HOLMES: For two days Members in various parts of the Committee have praised the concise and lucid way in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer presented his Budget to us, and I should not like to be behind any of them in" acknowledging that. We were able to follow, by means of the draft papers which were put in our hands, the figures which the right hon. Gentleman gave, and to understand, by the time he finished, the exact position with regard to the figures of the past year and his Estimates for the current one. I suppose there is no man who in private, political, or social circles is more popular with both sexes than the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He has a way of saying kindly things to everyone, and when he cannot say kind things, he does not say anything at all. He is particularly a genius at saying nice things about the present Government. When he was Minister of Labour, when he was President of the Board of Trade, and now that he is Chancellor of the Exchequer he, on all occasions, assures us what a wonderful Government we have, and how perfect are all their achievements. I cannot help feeling that when he was at the Cannes Conference, he used 'to stand by the seashore at about 5 o'clock in the afternoon, gazing at the sun setting behind the Esterel mountains, and saying, "Thank God for a British Government that gives Prance such a sunset!" He is particularly well satisfied with the Government with regard to finance. He says, "Need we be ashamed of achievements like these?" I am afraid there are a good many in this House, and still more outside, who are not at all satisfied with the Government's achievements with regard to finance. We believe that for several
years they have spent far more money than they ought to have done, and that the country has suffered heavier taxation than it could possibly bear.
It has been this taxation, and particularly one impost, to which I desire to refer, which has done as much as anything else to bring about the unparalleled industrial depression from which we are suffering to-day, when 2,000,000 are unemployed. The particular impost to which I have referred was that by which, under the Budget of 1920, the Excess Profits Duty was raised from 40 per cent, to 60 per cent. Let mc remind the Committee of a little of the history of the industrial life of this nation. Before the War, our industries were highly organised. Employers had realised that it was necessary for them to introduce every new method, take advantage of all new machinery and keep down their costs to the utmost limit, in order that they might be able to sell their goods in the various markets of the world. During the War all that disappeared. There was a shortage of material; there was a shortage of labour; and any man who could obtain both materials and labour could sell anything that he produced, whatever the cost might be. So almost unconsciously all our business people got into bad habits of not troubling about the cost of production, not looking out for new methods, not trying to run their businesses on economical lines, and that extravagant method was accentuated by the introduction of the tax called the Excess Profits Duty, which took away all incentive to develop business, and all incentive to keep down costs.
For a year, or even 18 months, after the Armistice we had a wonderful boom in trade. It was an entirely artificial boom. It was paid for by foreign nations either out of the surplus of their war loans, or by the creation of paper money. It was bound to come to an end as the purchasing power of the world, no longer bolstered up by borrowings or by paper money, deteriorated. So when that moment arrived, at the beginning of the year 1920, our business men realised that if they were to obtain the advantage of such trade as still existed in the world, they must reduce their costs once more to get them down to a proper basis. The extravagant habits which they had acquired during the War were gradually being eradicated. The reduction of the Excess
Profits Duty in 1919 to 40 per cent. gave the hope that in 1920 it would altogether be abolished. There was an entirely different spirit over the whole business world in this country, and in the first few months of 1920 plans were laid on one side for commencing new business, while on the other side plans were being drawn up for an extension of the old ones, particularly for a root and branch revolution in the methods of production so that costs might be at the lowest possible level. All that was being done in order to capture the decreasing volume of trade throughout the world.
While that was already in process the Chancellor of the Exchequer of that year came down and presented his Budget, the Budget of 1920, and he said that instead of the duty of 40 per cent, he was going to put the Excess Profits Duty to 60 per cent. What was the result? Plans were torn up. New businesses were not started. In the old businesses no longer was trouble taken to reduce costs because those concerned said, "What does it matter now whether we trouble any more if there is to be a 60 per cent. Excess Profits Duty taken by the Government; there is no incentive for us to reduce costs." The effect of that was that as the purchasing power of the world became less and less so the sale of our goods or the bulk of them fell off, and the representatives of our manufacturers as they went abroad had more difficulty in finding markets because of the high cost of these goods. If we had put our house in order and reduced our costs we would have got far more, of the world's trade than we got in 1920 and 1921. The effect of the proposal of the Lord Privy Seal, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, for increasing the Excess Profits Duty from 40 per cent, to 60 per cent, has been to accentuate the unemployment which we have suffered from in this country over the past year, has caused the businesses to be closed down, and has sent workmen into the streets looking for jobs.
I hope that will interest hon. Friends on my right, because in 1920, on the Report Stage of the Finance Bill, I moved an Amendment that, instead of the Excess Profits Duty being increased to 60 per cent., it should be abolished altogether. On that occasion the Labour party voted with the Government. Their spokesman, who was then the hon. Mem-
ber for Govan (Mr. N. Maclean), and one of their Whips, speaking from the Front Bench, said that if the Labour party had their way it would be increased to 100 per cent, instead of 60 per cent. If that had been done in 1920 the Labour party would now have had the sad satisfaction of knowing that still more than 2,000,000 of their fellow-workpeople were out of work. If this was the effect of what I have described on the businesses and industries of this country and the workpeople, what was the effect on the Government of raising the Excess Profits Duty to 60 per cent.? The Government itself were able to collect in the year 1920–21 £200,000,000 of Excess Profits Duty. Why, then, need they save? Where was any incentive to the Government to cut down their expenditure! Here with this easy way of collecting £200,000,000 a year: of getting it in this easy way out of businesses and depriving them of the capital needed to carry on. The Government themselves were able to carry on their Departments, and even to create new Departments, in the summer of 1920, and, in reality, although they possibly may not see it in this light, the picture is this: that no Departments were shut down, no Ministers sacked, no civil servants got rid of, and while they all remained in their establishment, employers, as a result of the action of the Government, were thrown out of their businesses and their workpeople were thrown out of work.
After this long period we are at last having expenditure cut down. Certain recommendations are being carried out in the Estimates that we have before us for the current year. In many of these cases, however, the cutting down could have taken place last year and even the year before. I desire to give to the Committee, if I may, one example. In the summer of 1920 the House aroused itself in the interests of economy and urged upon the Government the necessity of doing something. Before we rose for the Summer Recess in August, 1920, the Government to, as it were, "fob off" public opinion, and the demands of the Press appointed six Government Committees which were to investigate the various Government Departments, each Committee to be presided over by an unofficial Member of the House. I was Chairman of the Committee which investigated the Department of Overseas Trade. In
November, 1920, we issued a Report, and that Report made certain recommendations as to the reduction of expenditure. It was possible if the Government had so desired to accept these recommendations for last year's Budget. None of the recommendations were accepted. This year we have had the Geddes Committee. The Geddes Committee's recommendations in regard to the Department of Overseas Trade are almost identical with the recommendations that my Committee made the year before. Some of them have been accepted. Is it not obvious that if the Government had had the will for economy, they could have carried out-economies in that Department last year instead of waiting till now? If we go through the various other Departments which have been dealt with by the Geddes Committee we shall find many economies which they recommend, and which are being accepted by the Government to-day which could have been effected at least a year ago.
We have now got some real reduction in expenditure. We have at last got some reduction in taxation. There are some hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who have spoken who seem to think that the Government have no real surplus, and that they are cutting down taxation by means of borrowing. That is not my view at all. I believe that the Government have under-estimated their revenue and have over-estimated their expenditure for the coming year. I believe, moreover—whether they be right or wrong, that I shall endeavour to show in a moment—that it is our duty at the present time to look upon this Budget and upon the taxation which is imposed upon the nation in the light of the very serious industrial position which exists throughout the land. To my mind, it is only by reducing taxation that we can get the wheels of industry going regularly once more. If I had been Chancellor of the Exchequer, instead of reducing the Income Tax by 1s. I should have reduced it by 2s. in the £. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!"] The reason I should do that is this. Perhaps my hon. Friends on the right would say that, "Instead of taking another 1s. off Income Tax we would rather have something taken off sugar."

Mr. MYERS: Yes.

Mr. HOLMES: But I would rather give a man a job, so that by his wages
he would be able to pay for the sugar at its present price, than leave him without any wage to pay for the sugar after you have reduced its price.

Mr. ROBERTSON: We also want wages for the working men!

Mr. HOLMES: Such a reduction of the Income Tax by 2s. would mean this year an additional £32,500,000, and an additional £52,000,000 in a full year. How is that going to be raised? What would the Chancellor do if he accepted an Amendment to the Budget to that effect? In the first place I think a reduction of 2s. would give an enormous filip to trade and enterprise. The 1s. which has been taken off has almost been discounted. It was, as it were, the dose of medicine to prevent the patient from getting worse. The extra 1s. might be that dose of medicine which would help the patient to get quite well. The effect would be to start industry much more quickly. It would bring to the Chancellor of the Exchequer over a term of years increasing Income Tax, Super-tax and Corporation Profits Tax. The Income Tax he would feel but slightly this year, because only the weekly wage earners and those who receive salaries would be assessed up at the end of this year, and would pay their first instalment in January. On the profits of new businesses those concerned would be assessed on their first year and the right hon. Gentleman would obtain that additional Income Tax in 1923–24. In respect to old established businesses, any increase in their profits for the coming year would only come into assessment when this year came into the three years' average. His additional tax which starts next year will go along year after year. That is not the only thing. It would give an extra filip to trade and get more businesses going, established businesses taking on more and more, as I believe would be done as a result of a 2s. reduction. The country would save something on the other side for we should not have to pay so much unemployment benefit: the Exchequer would be saved that expenditure. Beyond that the purchasing power of the working people is going to be increased. If they have wages instead of the unemployment dole they will spend more on sugar, tea, beer, tobacco, and other excisable commodities and the Chancellor must gain
to that extent by the duties which are paid on those commodities.
So a reduction of another 1s. on the Income Tax, although it would mean £32,000,000 this year and £50,000,000 for a full year, is going in part for this year, probably entirely for next year, and for a number of years, to come to have the effect I suggest on Income Tax, Supertax, and Corporation Profits Tax. There would be a reduction of unemployment benefits on the expenditure side, and the spending of extra wages on sugar, tea, and other commodities. I ventured to say two or three, moments ago that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has under-estimated his receipts for the current year and over-estimated his expenditure. My first point is that he has under-estimated his receipts. He told us in his Budget speech that he was £296,000,000 in arrears with the Excess Profits Duty. He has budgeted for obtaining this year Excess Profits Duty to the extent of £27,800,000. I do not know exactly how he arrives at that £27,000,000 odd, but I estimate it will be something like this: He has spread the arrears of Excess Profits Duty to any who apply for the privilege over five years. Here is this £296,000,000 of arrears. Perhaps £46,000,000 has been written off as bad. Of the remaining £250,000,000 he expects to get £50,000,000 this year. Then he has repayments to the extent say of £23,000,000. I do not suppose my figures are exactly right, but possibly the Estimate is something of that nature.
What I want to suggest is this: That people who have found it difficult to pay their arrears of Excess Profits Duty are finding their difficulties becoming less. Businessses during the War period and for a year or two afterwards required far more capital than they had before the War or require to-day. Prices were higher, much higher. A person might have the same volume of business which, let us say, required £50,000 before the War and probably required £130,000 during the War and for a year or two afterwards, because of the price of stock and the amount of book debts which were so much higher. Prices are now falling. A business carrying the same volume does not require so much capital as was required two years ago. It has turned its stock and its book debts to a certain extent into cash, and it is becoming, in-
creasingly possible for firms and companies who were rather tied up for money owing to the high prices, to pay their taxes and to pay any arrears. Besides that they had been able to keep back the payment of taxes without any fine. There has been no interest payable on the arrears, but from the 1st January the Chancellor of the Exchequer has put a heavy fine on people who do not pay the duty. It is 5 per cent, free of tax, which is really equal to about 7 per cent.
I know of one large firm which had entered into an agreement with the Chancellor of the Exchequer to pay its arrears of Excess Profits Duty over five years last week decided, owing to the fall of the bank rate, to borrow the money at half per cent, over bank rate and pay the Chancellor of the Exchequer off. There will probably be many others who will pay in this way rather than wait for five years. I think it is almost certain that the Chancellor of the Exchequer receipts from the Excess Profits Duty will be more than £27,000,000 during the current year. The same applies to the Income Tax and to the Super-tax. On the 31st March, 1922, there were arrears of Income Tax and Super-tax amounting to £134,000,000. The year before that, on the 31st March, 1921, the arrears amounted to £102,000,000, an increase of £32,000,000 which have never been taken into account in our national balance sheet.
Everybody is aware that there has been no pressure exercised on the part of the Inland Revenue this year to collect the Income Tax and the Super-tax before the 31st March. There may have been pressure in one or two cases, but generally speaking I think it is recognised throughout the business world that the usual pressure to pay the Income Tax and the Super-tax before the 5th April has not been put on this year. In the same way as it is getting easier for firms to pay the Excess Profits Duty because they get their capital on a lower interest basis, so it is more easy to pay the Income Tax, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer will probably find that he will be able to get in a considerable amount of those arrears of £134,000.000 so that when the 31st March next comes he will have arrears far less than that figure. I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer for these reasons will be able to collect far more of the Excess Profits Duty and far more
Income Tax and Super-tax during the current year than lie has estimated for, and he will have no difficulty in taking off the Income Tax the extra shilling.
It may be asked what provision is to be made in future years in regard to the Miscellaneous Receipts of £90,000,000 from the sale of war stores. I have already pointed out that the effect of reducing taxation now will be to increase the yield from the Income Tax, the Super-tax and other tax as a result of increased business. Besides that, there must be reduced expenditure, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer should realise that unless he keeps his hand on the various Departments and presses them day and night to cut down their expenditure, unless he has the incentive himself to do it, he will have a deficiency, and surely the policy I recommend is the best thing the House can do to help the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his task. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Central Glasgow (Mr. Bonar Law) suggested yesterday that the Navy Estimates might be cut down, and that we were spending more than we need to spend on that Service.
There is another important point, and that is over-estimating the expenditure for the current year. We must remember that the salaries of the Civil Service are based on the increase in the cost of living. I believe I am right in saying that the alteration in these salaries takes place twice yearly at the end of February and the end of August. The Estimates before us are based on the Civil Service salaries remaining at the rates at which they stood in February last. Since then the index number of the cost of living has fallen, and it will fall still more as the result of the 4d. taken off the tea duty, and at the end of August there will be a large reduction in civil servants' salaries. Therefore, for seven months out of the twelve the Chancellor of the Exchequer is going to pay remuneration to the Civil Service in all its branches, including the Post Office, on a lower scale than he has budgeted for, and there will be a saving in expenditure to that extent. For these reasons I venture to express the view that when the 31st March, 1923, arrives, it will be found that the receipts for the year are more than the right hon. Gentleman has budgeted for, and I think the expenditure during the year
will be less than he has budgeted for. I almost venture to be a prophet and say that if before this time next year there has been a General Election then the Chancellor of the Exchequer will announce that for 1923–24 he will once more resume paying off debt, but if there has not been an election by this time next year the Chancellor of the Exchequer will announce a reduction in the beer duty.

Lieutenant - Colonel STEPHENSON: Although, unlike the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury), I have not heard 30 Budget statements, the one made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Monday last was the fourth to which I have listened and it was the first which I have heard which has been in any way calculated to arrest those feelings of gloom and depression which its predecessors have done so much to create and augment. On this account I should like to offer my humble congratulations to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for having produced a Budget which, while not immune from criticism, for it has been described by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Mossley (Mr. A. Hopkinson) as a piece of humbug, has at any rate done something to cheer us up and to create an atmosphere of confidence in the future, and there is nothing more certain than the fact that an atmosphere of confidence is the thing which this country needs most at the present time.
I am quite sure that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be the first to admit that nothing but the continuance of progressive reductions in national expenditure would justify the Budget which he has presented to the House. Under these circumstances, that Budget has the merit of being the first since the Armistice to do something to relieve the necessities of all classes, to encourage agriculture and the trading community generally to new efforts, and as I have already said to create a new atmosphere. It may be that I am too optimistic, but I look upon this Budget as marking the turn in the tide of national finance, as we have known it since the Armistice. Much cannot be expected from such small remissions in taxation, for which however we are grateful, but I hope they will do something to enable the workers, who are now idling their time in the market place, and subsisting in enforced idleness—just
as much against their wish as it is against ours—on State doles, to once again earn their livelihood by honest toil, greatly to the advantage of themselves and to the community at large. I think it is as true to-day as when the words were written to say that
Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.
If I may offer a few words of criticism on the Budget, let me say at once that the remissions of taxation offered are, in my opinion, far too small to meet the needs of the situation. While the methods by which these small remissions are obtained are distinctly open to question, and are not those of which any Chancellor of the Exchequer can feel very proud. I think I have seen occasionally, in regard to Central American Government stocks, the announcement: "Sinking Fund payments suspended." Such words ought not to be associated with British Government finance. I agree very much with what the previous speaker has said. I think that the condition of our export trade, and the wave of unemployment from which we are at present suffering, renders desirable a very much bolder reduction of taxation; in fact, I think it is almost a necessity.
5.0 P.M.
Whatever hon. Members on the Labour Benches may say, they know just as well as I do that the workers of this country get their full share of the plunder from what they are pleased to call a rich man's Budget, for even a so-called rich man cannot pay for labour when to the extent of half his income he is merely collecting money for the Government. He cannot do with the remaining half or less than that what he could formerly do with the whole, or a large proportion of the whole, viz., find employment and pay for it. Personally I believe that if a firm stand had been made in the cause of economy it would have rendered possible a greater remission of taxation, and would have avoided the need of any recourse to the dubious methods by which the present reductions have been achieved. I agree that there has been some over-estimating of expenditure and underestimating of receipts. I hope I am right in thinking that if the Chancellor of the Exchequer had, as a business concern would have done, taken into account all his good book debts, better results might
have been shown in the Budget. I should like to say a word or two upon the direction in which I think the right hon. Gentleman might look for savings in national expenditure. Since I first entered this House I have eat on the Select Committee on National Expenditure and on the Committee on Estimates which followed it. These Committees have always been checkmated when they came to grips with the activities of Government Departments by reason of the fact that they are not allowed to touch matters of policy. I am quite sure however there has never been a member of those Committees to whom it has not been evident how desirable and how practicable it would be in some cases to apply the axe and in others the pruning knife to many Departmental activities, and especially the activities which have grown up since 1913. On that account I welcome the appeal which the right hon. Gentleman made for "the support of the House, first in resisting new expenditure and secondly in cutting off services which, however useful they may be, are of such a character that at the present time we cannot afford to retain them." That is what we have all been saying, and I hope the House will not refuse the right hon. Gentleman the support for which he appeals. I do not think it will, and I believe the sooner he translates his words into deeds the better it will be for the well-being and prosperity of this country.
The right hon. Gentleman might turn his attention, not only to the numbers of temporary civil servants, but also to the scales of pay of all ranks in Government employment. I am not alluding to the teachers, but I think it will be found that in most branches of the public service, both civil and military, substantial increases have been granted to meet circumstances which, it is to be hoped, are now passing away. I believe that the Committee presided over by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) was responsible for fixing the salaries of certain Government officials at the level of £3,000 per annum, a point which had not previously been reached. I do not know whether these salaries were intended to be fixed for all time or whether it was meant that they should apply only to the circumstances of the day when the Committee was sitting, but, at any rate, they represent a consider-
able increase in the scale of salaries which existed before the War. Again, there are Ministries to-day which cost considerably more than the Departments which fulfilled the same functions did before the War. There is another question to which attention should be turned, and that is the question of first-class travelling fares for Government officials. No one grudges these officials comforts of that sort, but I believe it will be found that the Treasury rules allow first-class travelling fares in conjunction with salaries which certainly would not be held by the recipients to justify such expenditure if they were travelling on their own account and at their own expense.
As illustrating the great increase in the number of civil servants, I would like to call the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the increased number of buildings occupied by Government staffs as compared with 1913, and in doing this I would ask him not to forget those ornamental structures which still adorn the roofs of the Admiralty and the War Office. Why a smaller Army and Navy require a larger staff to look after them is one of the things which an ordinary person does not and never will understand. Another thing which it is difficult to understand is why a poor country such as this is requires so much more expensive a Government than it formerly had. These are matters which are exceedingly difficult of comprehension to him who is generally known as the Man in the Street. Some people may be inclined not to attach too much importance to the opinion of the Man in the Street, but Members of Parliament have to take cognisance of such opinions and I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer might do the same. I am aware that the task of the Chancellor is in many ways an unpleasant one and that he deserves all the sympathy that we can give him, but I am sure that the greater the boldness with which he grasps the nettle the greater will be his reward when he meets the House next Budget day. For the present the right hon. Gentleman has given us something to go on with. I agree with the hon. Gentleman for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Holmes), that it is not so much as we should have liked. The right hon. Gentleman might have been a little bolder and given us a little more, but, at any rate, he has made a beginning in the reduction of the oppressive, I had
nearly said overwhelming, taxation with which we are burdened, and I hope it will be continued until we approach those pre-War standards which we remember in the dim distance. Our gratitude is due to the right hon. Gentleman. I, personally, am grateful to him, but I would remind him that like hounds which have tasted blood our appetites are whetted and we ask for more.

Sir WILLIAM DAVISON: In the discussion which has already taken place on the statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer last Monday, the Budget proposals have been looked at from nearly every point of view and from almost every angle, but there is one statement which the right hon. Gentleman made which so far has received scarcely any consideration at all at the hands of this Committee. It was a statement elicited by an interrogation, and it was of a very remarkable character. It was to the effect that, in his Estimates for the forthcoming year, he had not included any amount whatever for reparation payments by Germany, and he added that any payments which might be received from Germany would be considered by him as a windfall. A statement like that, coming from the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the present Government, is a very remarkable one, when we consider that it is nearly four years after the War has ended, and when we also consider the statements made by His Majesty's Ministers immediately prior to the last General Election, when we, were told that Germany was to be made to pay for the War to the utmost limits of her capacity. Immediately before the electors were asked to cast their votes the Prime Minister stated that the whole cost of the War would be demanded from Germany, and that he would search her pockets.
The Germans, whatever else they are, are certainly not lacking in shrewdness or craftiness, and when they found that the Prime Minister of England proposed to search their pockets, they took very good care that their pockets should be empty when the searchers arrived. They therefore deliberately and knowingly started the printing press to work at full speed all through Germany, turning out German marks, and those German marks they largely sold abroad, getting very considerable sums of foreign money by that way into Germany. The more marks
they sold abroad, the more the printing presses were worked in order to turn out still more marks for home consumption. That had the anticipated effect of providing full employment for the workers in Germany, while our own workers were unemployed. The German working people have, for the most part, had full employment by reason of the fact that they could undersell the goods of nearly every other country in the markets of the world. At the same time, while we were groaning under war taxation, Germany has paid very little war taxation at all.
A few weeks ago, just before the House adjourned for the Easter Recess, I asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what were the revenue receipts in taxes in this country and in Germany. I agree it is very difficult to adequately compare the value of the mark outside Germany with its value inside Germany. But I have got some figures from which hon. Members can make their own valuation, and they can judge how far the facts approximate to what I am stating. Whatever the valuation of the mark the difference in the burden of taxation as between this country and Germany is colossal. The taxation revenue of Germany for the past year was 62,000,000,000 marks, as compared with £857,000,000 in this country. The value of the mark has varied between 1,250 and 1,400 to the £. It has recently gone up, but in order to arrive at some idea I suggest taking the value of the mark at 1,000 to the £. According to that it will be seen Germany is only being taxed to the extent of £62,000,000 as compared with our £857,000,000. Therefore, whatever value be placed on the mark there is an enormous discrepancy between these two sets of figures. It works out roughly that the burden of taxation in Germany is £1 per head of population, as against £18 per head in this country, and whereas the German national debt approximates 2,500 marks per head (say £3 or £3 10s.) the national debt of this country per head is about £170. Those are startling figures, whatever value one puts on the mark, and I do think there has been great neglect somewhere in not bringing the Germans to task with regard to these matters.

Mr. LYLE-SAMUEL: Is the hon. Member calculating the external value of the mark in order to get the ratio of internal taxation?

Sir W. DAVISON: I am comparing, as well as I can, the taxation obtaining in Germany with that obtaining in this country, and I am endeavouring to point out that we, who won the War, are being taxed out of existence, whereas Germany, who lost the War, is not bearing a tithe of the taxation that we are enduring at the present moment. I have said that by this process of inflation Germany has made her pockets empty to the searcher, but it does not at all follow that Germany is devoid of wealth, or has lost all her wealth. There are two directions in which very great wealth can be discovered in Germany. One is in her factories, which, as I have said before, have been working at full speed. Of course, however, I admit at once that it is impossible for us to accept German manufactured goods in payment of reparations, as it would greatly add to the unemployment from which we are already suffering. But, in addition to her factories, Germany has vast natural resources, which have so far been largely untouched, for, as the Committee will remember as well as I do, the War was fought outside Germany. One of the greatest of Germany's natural resources is her forests. [An HON. MEMBER: "Coal!"] Coal, of course, is an accumulation of forests and sunlight. At the present time one of the greatest of Germany's national assets is her forests. No less than one-fourth of the whole German Empire is under forests, and they are not mere plantations, as they largely are in this country, but carefully cultivated land for mercantile purposes. The trees have been scientifically planted so that they could readily be used, whether for hard wood or soft wood, pit props, or whatever they were required for.
There are some remarkable figures with regard to the timber which this country requires. In 1913 we imported about £33,000,000 worth of timber, in 1919 about £70,000,000, and in 1920 no less than £80,000,000; while last year, in spite of the depression in trade, our imports of timber were no less than £30,000,000. Why have not the Government and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is responsible for the national finances, obtained from Germany some share of her vast and untouched forest resources to meet that heavy expenditure which this country has been obliged to incur in
respect of timber? As the Committee will know, our timber supply is largely exhausted. It is calculated that it will cost £100,000 a year for planting in order to make this country safe in the event of another war. Owing to the stringency of our finances, we are now spending only £10,000, and not £100,000, in making good the devastation caused to our timber supplies during the War. Therefore, it is inevitable that for years to come we shall have to import for our trade purposes, our pit props, and other things for which timber is required, millions a year from abroad, and I do think that that is one way in which Germany might contribute very substantially towards both the debt and the revenue of this country.
There are other ways in which, without affecting employment in this country, we could obtain considerable wealth from Germany. There are her wood pulp factories, and we import very considerable quantities of wood pulp every year. Then, again, the year before the War, we imported sugar from Germany to the value of something like £10,000,000. We have still to import large quantities of sugar into this country, and, if we got it from Germany, we should, of course, dispose of it here at such a price that it would not interfere with our West Indian colonies or with the small beet sugar industry which we have started here, the sugar derived from which has been exempted from certain taxation in order to foster its cultivation. Millions can be obtained from Germany, and it is the duty of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to get that money for this country, rather than continue the overburdening taxation which is hindering trade and causing unemployment. I will only give a couple more instances. It is well known that during the War Germany, a large agricultural country, was cut off from the supplies of nitrates from Chile, whence she had previously imported large quantities, and she also required them for her explosives. She therefore started large manufactories for manufacturing nitrates from the air. These manufactories are still going full speed ahead, and Germany could supply us from her manufactories with large quantities of these nitrates, which have nothing to do with any manufacture in this country, and which are urgently required by our farmers. I now come to the last matter to which I shall allude as a source of wealth which
we could obtain from Germany. The Committee will remember that, owing to Germany having commenced this War, all the business people of this country, very early in the War, were asked to hand over to the Government their American and other foreign securities, to enable the Government to get money from America for the purchase of munitions and war supplies. Germany has very large investments in America, and also in European and other foreign countries, and there is not the least reason why she should not be asked to do to her nationals what the British Government did to its nationals during the War, that is to say, ask them to hand over their American and other securities to the German Government, the German Government compensating them for those securities and paying them the interest in the German currency, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eye (Mr. Lyle-Samuel) quite rightly says, has a different value in Germany from what it has outside, so that the loss would be minimised in that way. Those securities could then be handed over to the British Government towards meeting our heavy debt to America.
I claim that I have shown a number of ways in which many millions could be obtained from Germany towards alleviating the terrible burden of debt from which this country is suffering. The getting of those supplies depends on the Chancellor of the Exchequer having a strong heart. It depends far more upon that than upon a nimble mind or nimble fingers. It is all very well to talk of having debtors or murderers or anyone else by the throat, but if they commence to kick your shins and smile, instead of choking, as murderers and debtors ought to do if you take them by the throat, it is no use taking your hand off their throat and saying, "Oh, my dear fellow, I am so sorry! I intended to shake your hand all the time, and by a stupid blunder I caught you by the throat." That is exactly what has happened at the Conference at Genoa. When we said something to the Russians about paying their debts, they at once said, "Oh, but you owe us £5,000,000,000 of debt," and that is the kind of trouble we get into. It is essential for the Government to have a strong heart and to force these things forward. I cannot imagine anything more prejudicial to the interests of this
country than that the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget statement, which is looked forward to by every civilised country in the world, should say that anything he might get from Germany would be looked upon as a windfall. I think that is most prejudicial. If you were bringing an action against a man for damages, and your solicitor went about the country saying, "Well, we do not expect to get anything. Anything we get will be considered a windfall," think how prejudicial that would be to your case. That is the point that I specially desire to bring forward. I associate myself with what was said by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Park Division of Sheffield (Lieut.-Colonel Stephenson) and also by the hon. Member who opened the Debate. We have made a beginning in the reduction of taxation, but it is only a beginning, and it is essential that expenditure should continue to be cut down. As I and several others pointed out just before the House adjourned for the Easter Recess, we cannot afford any expenditure which is not absolutely necessary. The presence on the Front Bench of the representative of the Office of Works reminds mc that in the Estimates of that Department, which were then before us, there was case after case of new Post Office buildings, which it was proposed to build during the coming year. It was proposed to build a new post office in Threadneedle Street at a cost of £90,000, one at Brighton at £48,000, one at Luton at £37,000, one at Reading at £86,000, one at Rochdale at £51,000 and one at Dundee at £41,000. We have got on with the old buildings for the last six or seven years. No doubt they are very inconvenient. Lots of people find that it would be cheaper in the long run to buy boots for £3 a pair rather than reach-me-downs at 25s., but many of us have not got the money, and we have to get on with the 25s. boots rather than spend the £3 on the more expensive article. I have no doubt that, as was stated at the time, it would pay the Government in the long run to put up these new buildings and not tinker with the old ones, but we have not got the money to do it at the present moment. I hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he comes to reply, will deal with these matters specifically.

Mr. NAYLOR: I have listened with great attention to many of the speeches that have been made on the Budget, and, without any desire to add to the repetition that is now taking place on more than one issue which the consideration of that Budget involves, I do expect a little more elucidation from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or any other Member of the Committee, to justify the remission of that 1s. on the Income Tax. I can well understand that a good case can be made out for relieving the burden of excessive taxation upon any class in the community. That is an arguable proposition, but that is not the argument which has been prominent in support of the remission of Income Tax. The argument which has been used—I say the argument, but it is hardly deserving the word. It has been no more than a statement that the remission of this 1s. is going to have an effect in the improvement of trade. We ought to have something more than a mere, statement in support of that proposition, and we have not had it up till now. If you can prove to me that by taking off one, two, three or more shillings from the Income Tax you are going to put our people into work, I am prepared to say the proposition ought to be considered. What is the alternative? It has been suggested by Members on both sides of the Committee that the £32,000,000 more that the Chancellor has at his disposal might be better employed in the reduction of the debt, and I am not disposed to quarrel with that view.
Let me try to do what other Members have not attempted up till now, and trace the economic process which will be put into operation when that 1s. is taken off the Income Tax. The argument is that by taking the 1s. off the £32,000,000 will be free to be used in the development of trade and commerce. What would be the effect of reducing I he National Debt to the extent of £32,000,000? That £32,000,000 would be put on to the market as investable capital for the trade and commerce of the country to a far more complete extent than it would be in the form of the remission of Income Tax. The £32,000,000, if it has any effect upon trade and commerce, is there from the first pound to the last. When we buy back the Government stock that is now held to the extent of £32,000,000, and inasmuch as that £32,000,000 is now in the
hands of the Government, in the form of an investment that the holders of Government stock are prepared to use, does it not follow that if we buy back that £32,000,000 the persons who own that money will be looking around for means of investment, and thereby improving trade and commerce and employment at the same time? But you do not get that effect. If the £32,000,000 is going to be returned to people of varying interests in different classes of the community, that money is not necessarily going to be free for the purposes of trade and commerce.
It seems to me that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has paid too much attention to the agitation of the City in this matter. I would recall to his mind that when the Income Tax was first introduced into this country there was great opposition in the City, and the financial magnates told Pitt at that time that if the Income Tax was enforced it would have a most deplorable effect upon trade and industry. But events did not justify that prediction. There was also a petition of protest from the City when Peel proposed to reintroduce the Income Tax after a period of abolition, but Peel, although leader of the political party represented by Gentlemen on the other side of the House, was wise in his generation and refused to take off the Income Tax, and Gladstone carried it on afterwards in spite of the protestations of the men in the City. To-day we are asked to remit this tax, with the same reasons behind the proposal as were made in those days of long ago, and with no more justification now than then. But I hope it may not be too late for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to reconsider that part of his proposal. If he is asked by Income Tax payers why he is changing his mind, I can give him an answer out of his own mouth, when he told the Members behind him only a few weeks ago, "You are getting back £700,000,000 or £800,000,000 a year in interest." [HON. MEMBERS: "How much?"] We will say £500,000,000. The Chancellor's point was that those who were complaining were taking it out of the country's funds. Whether it be £1,000,000 or £500,000,000, the principle is the same, and therefore there is no reason why the Chancellor, under a mistaken impression that trade is going to be improved by the remission of the 1s., should give that
advantage to one section of the community and disregard the claims of every other section. I submit, on the advice of those better qualified to judge than myself, that it would be sounder finance to maintain the present rate of Income Tax and to apply that £32,000,000 to the reduction of the National Debt, and on those grounds I ask the Committee carefully to consider that question of the Income Tax and the desirability, not of increasing it, as has been suggested, but of giving the benefit of the surplus to other classes of the community who can better do with it than those whom it is proposed to benefit under the proposal now before the Committee.

Sir PHILIP SASSOON: I am persuaded that most people outside this House will have received the Budget with a certain amount of relief, although I do not expect it has excited very much enthusiasm anywhere. We shall all agree that it is more or less the sort of Budget that everyone expected. I do not mean to imply that it is the Budget the country would have liked to have, but the right hon. Gentleman has introduced a Budget which is tolerably satisfactory to the average man under the present conditions. For myself, I think we could not have expected anything more reasonable, and we can congratulate the Chancellor of the Exchequer on having been able to present in these difficult days so hopeful and so comparatively uncontroversial a statement of the national finances. It has not given rise to any very great outburst of joy anywhere as far I can make out in the City, but I do not think it has called forth any very serious criticism anywhere. Although some people quite legitimately regret the suppression of the Sinking Fund, after all the continual repayment of debt out of revenue is up to a point a process of robbing Peter to pay Paul, and with that one possible exception the Budget will do much to restore confidence and will be a step in the right direction and an earnest of better things to come. But it would clearly be a mistake to imagine that the satisfaction of public opinion goes no further than that or that people will be content to rest for very long with only these reductions. The burden of taxation is still a crushing one, and these measures are valuable as showing some relief and indication that the tide is at last turning towards reduction
in expenditure and in taxation. But I do not think it will cause any very considerable uplift either in industry or in trade. It is true that the fact that there will be more money in private hands will to a certain extent stimulate industry and enterprise, but so much of it will have to go to counterbalance past losses or to meeting risks which have been already incurred that I do not think there will be very much money left over for new business in the next 12 months.
But all the information I have received—and I am sure this is the experience of all hon. Members—is that all classes are looking forward for a continuance of relief in taxation with an earnestness and anxiety that no Government can afford to disappoint very long. This year the major part of the reduction has been devoted to Income Tax. Direct taxation has increased much more in proportion during the last few years than indirect taxation, and it has this further disadvantage that although you can evade the incidence of it by extravagance you cannot reduce it by economy, as is possible with many forms of indirect taxation. None the less it is obvious that there are very large sections of the population who do not pay Income Tax and yet consider themselves grievously overtaxed. The accepted definition of an optimist is a man who does not mind what happens so long as it does not happen to him, and there are many optimists, as far as Income Tax payers are concerned, who have become pessimists of the gloomiest type on the question of indirect taxation. The beginning which has been made with tea is a small one, and there are many worthy taxpayers who are not necessarily exclusively tea drinkers. Consumers of spirits and beer and tobacco are also looking for concessions. It is on record that when a referendum was taking place in New Guinea on the subject of prohibition, the question was asked how prohibition would affect the mission, and an Australian digger said it would have a very bad effect because no one would subscribe to a mission unless he was drunk. It is not necessary to adopt the digger's view of that question to realise that were it not for the vast revenue accruing to the State from the consumption of beer, spirits and tobacco we should not be able to reduce Income Tax or any other tax. There-
fore it is only fair that the workers of this country, who provide so much towards the State revenue, especially in connection with tobacco and beer, should at an early date, get some consideration. We all realise that there are other claims to be met first, but new reductions on these heads and further reductions on heads that have already come in for consideration on this Budget are looked for eagerly at an early date. The moral of the situation is this, that, however long suffering and patient the people of this country are, the satisfaction which they are evincing over this Budget is based chiefly upon the expectation that the time has come when taxes will be reduced more and more. My own constituency will welcome as much as anything else in the Budget the assurance that there will be further reductions in the course of the next 12 months, and nothing is likely more than that assurance to add to the approval with which the public are receiving this Budget.

Sir GODFREY COLLINS: The hon. Baronet who has just spoken very truly said that the public expected a reduction in taxation in the present Budget, and that they were looking for further reductions in the immediate future. The Budget of His Majesty's Government-reflects their policy. The Government policy determines the rate of expenditure, which automatically fixes the rate of taxation, and if the rate of taxation in the future is to be reduced it is vital for His Majesty's Government to lower their rate of expenditure. This Debate gives the Committee an opportunity of surveying our national finances. Our financial system has stood five years of War and three years of extreme expenditure. That system, based as it is, broadly speaking, on the ability to pay, and supported by a nation which has shown great self-sacrifices, is to-day the envy and admiration of the world; but any system may be too severely tried. Any nation can have too severe a strain placed upon its resources, and it is quite evident that our financial system is showing signs of breaking under the strain imposed by His Majesty's Government. Not only are there large numbers of people walking our streets to-day, who have been driven there by high taxation, but the very startling figures which the Government have announced, showing that over £100,000,000 of taxation was un-
paid at the end of the last financial year, is clear and definite proof that the inhabitants of this country are unable today to pay the taxes levied by His Majesty's Government. That is not only alarming to the Treasury, but creates a keen sense of injustice between the different sections of taxpayers. As every hon. Member well knows, there are taxpayers who have denied themselves severely in order to pay their taxes, and the announcement of the Government that over £100,000,000 of taxation was unpaid on the 31st March last will create a growing sense of injustice in the minds of these individuals. Therefore, I welcome the lower rate of taxation embodied in the present Budget. That reduction is long overdue. It is also inadequate in amount, because, if the Government this year, as they well might, had reduced their national expenditure, it would have been possible for the direct and indirect taxation imposed in this Budget to be reduced.
The main points which have emerged during these three days of Debate is the amount of the National Debt which the Government claimed to have reduced within the last three years. The Chancellor of the Exchequer made great play with that point. The Government claim that the National Debt has been largely reduced. What are the facts? For the past year, according to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, there was a surplus of £88,000,000. For the year 1920–21, according to the statement of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, there was a surplus of £239,000,000. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the 19th April, 1920, stated there was a deficit on the year 1919–20 of £326,000,000. Therefore, taking the three years since the 31st March, 1919, instead of a reduction in the amount of our National Debt as stated in the figures given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the reduction only amounts to £21,000,000. That gives a very startling, comparison between the figures enunciated by the right hon. Member for the Central Division of Glasgow (Mr. Bonar Law). The comparison is a true comparison, a comparison from the 31st March, 1919, to the end of the last financial year—three complete financial years. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his Budget statement on Monday, took a particular period, the 31st December, 1919,
and gave certain figures based on that date.

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Sir Robert Horne): No, I gave the date at which the National Debt reached its highest point, namely, the 31st December, 1919. The comparison which I made was between the 31st March, 1920, and the 31st March, 1922, and I showed the amount of debt which this country has paid off in those two financial years. I did not compare the present state of the debt with the highest figure.

Sir G. COLLINS: The Chancellor of the Exchequer admits that a fair comparison is to take a complete financial year. He took two years. I suggest that if we are to-day reviewing the post-War Budget of the present Government we should take three years, and that we should wipe out the four and a half months from the date of the Armistice to the end of March, 1919, as an exceptional period. If the Committee agree that that is a fair method of approaching this subject, the record of His Majesty's Government is that they have reduced the National Debt by £21,000,000. What has happened during those three years? They have collected £500,000,000 of Excess Profits Duty. That has all been spent. They have sold capital assets to the extent of £650,000,000. Therefore, instead of our National Debt being reduced as a result of their three years' policy we have sold national assets to the extent of £650,000,000. True, we have reduced the National Debt by £21,000,000, but the nation to-day is £630,000,000 poorer than it was three years ago. That involves at a rate of 5 per cent, per annum a yearly loss for all time of over £30,000,000. When the public take note, as I hope they will, of this startling and striking statement of fact—which I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will correct if I am mistaken—they will be able to judge completely and accurately as to what has really happened during the last three years. The right hon. Member for Central Glasgow supported this Budget on the broad ground that during the period of prosperity this country had reduced her indebtedness. I submit that the contrary is the case, and that duping the last three years, although the National Debt has been reduced by £21,000,000, the nation is poorer to the extent of £630,000,000. That is the record of His Majesty's Government.
Reference has been made to the extreme burden of taxation which is imposed by the Government on the inhabitants of this country. How serious, how deep, and how heavy that burden is is seldom realised. I have been making inquiries as to the rate of taxation imposed in France and in America, and I find, although it is difficult to make an exact comparison, that while making every allowance, and basing the figures on the present rate of exchange, the taxation levied on the inhabitants of America for 1921 was about £13 10s. per head, in France about £8, and in Great Britain about £19. Therefore, if you add together the taxation imposed on the inhabitants of America and France it will be seen that Great Britain is paying to-day nearly as heavy a burden of taxation as the total burden in France and America. That burden is intolerable. It can only be reduced in one way. I will not on this occasion refer in any detail to expenditure, but I am anxious to deal with a point raised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer about the reduction of debt. In his present Budget he frankly admits that he makes no provision for the reduction of debt. To reduce debt can never be very popular at the moment, but any reduction of debt is bound to lead to a lower burden in the future. The rate of interest on the National Debt can only be lowered permanently by a real surplus of revenue over expenditure. The Government point with pride to the sharp rise in gilt-edged securities at the present time. The price of Consols to-day stands at the same figure as at the Armistice. There has been no improvement in our national securities during the last three-and-a-half years in comparison with the date of the Armistice. Here, again, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will correct me if I am mistaken.

Sir R. HORNE: Are all the other Government stocks at the same price?

6.0 P.M.

Sir G. COLLINS: I have not the figures, but I am quite certain that the rate of interest on these things is very much the same to-day as it was at the time of the Armistice. The Prime Minister has often invited the House of Commons to compare the present time with the Napoleonic period. I accept the comparison. Three years after the
Napoleonic War, British credit rose by 33 per cent. The Duke of Wellington told the country at that time that there was no need to fear any military trouble on the Continent, with the result that expenditure was very largely reduced, and it is a rather striking commentary on those days that the House of Commons refused to pass the taxation which the Ministry of that date proposed. The House of Commons at that time took the matter into their own hands and refused to accept the heavy taxation which His Majesty's Ministers were anxious to impose, with the inevitable result that the Government was forced to reduce national expenditure. I would like to see this House refuse to grant the necessary Supply to His Majesty's Ministers, and by that means force them to curtail their expenditure, especially on the fighting forces.
Coming to the figures given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the total tax revenue for the year 1921 was £856,000,000. The Chancellor of the Exchequer proposes to grant a reduced taxation of £38,000,000, leaving a total of £818,000,000. He informed the Committee on Monday that, through the setting up of a Parliament in Ireland, he would lose £18,000,000 through Customs and Excise I have not been able to find out how much is lost in direct taxation in that country, but if I put it at, say, £12,000,000 I reach a figure of £30,000,000, and deducting that from the £818,000,000 we have £788,000,000 after making these two allowances, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer expects to receive only £729,000,000. If these figures are accurate they lead to the conclusion that he is budgeting this year for a 7½ per cent, decrease in theyield of direct and indirect taxation. Perhaps when the Chancellor comes to reply he may give some information on the point with reference to Ireland, so that the Committee may be in possession of further facts and figures in view of later discussions on this point. Has the Chancellor under-estimated or over-estimated his expenditure? To judge that accurately, we must take note of his past record on this point. Last year the calculations for Excess Profits Duty and Corporation Profits Duty were very wide of the mark. The amount to be received was over-estimated considerably, and if the past be any guide to the present estimate, his estimates of revenue
in the coming year are an over-estimate, and there is little doubt that his expenditure is under-estimated. An examination of the figures reveals clearly that the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith), that the Budget is a gamble, is fully justified. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has over-estimated his revenue, and it would seem certain that he has under-estimated his expenditure. The burden must be reduced and can be reduced only by a drastic curtailment of non-productive expenditure. I would invite the Government during the coming month to give attention to that matter, and when the country takes note of their record during the last three years, I think that it will say to itself that during that period His Majesty's Ministers have not exercised that prudence, caution and foresight in the management of national finance which are demanded by the people of this country.

Sir R. HORNE: I would like to express to the Committee my gratitude for the consideration which they have shown, both to the Budget which I have presented to them and also to myself personally. I acknowledge with a sincere feeling of thanks the compliments which have been paid to me, and I would like particularly to express my acknowledgment to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) for the kindness with which he referred to the speech in which I put forward this Budget. He used only one phrase which could, I think, in any degree be regarded as harsh. He described the Budget as a gamble, and the hon. Member for Greenock (Sir G. Collins) has adopted that particular description of the proposals which I have made. I might have been downhearted as a result of that, but I am comforted by the course of the Debate, even though the right hon. Gentleman seems to hold the view which he has expressed. He is the leader of a party, and one would at least expect, especially when that party does not run to any very large dimensions, that there would be some coherence of opinion among its members. And yet in the course of this Debate the right hon. Gentleman has been thrown over by two very important Members who sit on the benches behind him.
Last evening an illuminating speech was made by one of the Members from
Lancashire, a man of great experience, who gave his support to the very Budget which his leader described as a gamble, and, this afternoon, one of the best speeches which have been made upon the subject of the Budget was delivered by the hon. Member for North-east Derbyshire (Mr. Holmes). His opinion is one which all of us must treat with respect in reference to any question which comes before the House, but with special respect in connection with matters which involve business or finance. I suppose that there are few Members of this House of his experience and eminence in either of these matters. He is very well known as a chartered accountant of high standing, with an experience which has given him more information regarding business relations and finance than is possessed by all but a very few Members of the House. Accordingly, I am confident, when I hear such expressions of opinion coming from the benches behind the right hon. Gentleman, from Members whose natural desire would be to support the point of view which he adopts on important questions of this kind, that nothing but a strong and sincere conviction would lead them to take a course directly antagonistic to that which the right hon. Gentleman has taken.
Coming to the main criticisms of the proposals of the Budget—there is first the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean) that we have under-estimated our expenditure and over-estimated our revenue. Both he and the hon. Member for Greenock have been inclined to take the line that the Estimates for last year should give the House less confidence in the Estimates for the current year. Is that a fair comparison to make? I would ask the Committee to recollect what wore the conditions in which last year's Estimates were made. These Estimates necessarily were made up before the presentation of the Budget, and the three months immediately following the Budget were occupied by a stoppage in the coal trade, a stoppage which affected not merely the people immediately engaged in that trade, but brought to a standstill the largest trades of the country and threw an enormous number of people out of employment. I think that the number of people out of employment rose as high as 3,500,000. Could it be expected that those who made the Estimates weeks in
advance of a national calamity of that kind could by any chance foretell with accuracy what the national income was likely to be?

Sir D. MACLEAN: Customs and Excise.

Sir R. HORNE: I take first the Income Tax in which we have an over-estimate of not much more than £10,000,000. Why in that case were we so near the mark? The reason is that Income Tax is one of the most stable sources of revenue of this country and is based on an average of the previous three years and therefore is not largely affected by the conditions of the immediate present. Accordingly it was more possible in that case to give an estimate which approximated to truth. In the case of Customs and Excise surprise has been expressed at the manner in which the Estimate was exceeded, but we know now what the cause was. The savings of the people of this country amounted in the aggregate to far more than anyone could have supposed, and throughout the whole of last year there was a great deal of expenditure which was justified by the savings of the people but not by their present earnings. Unfortunately these savings, as I fear, are now more or less exhausted, and we have to estimate in the current year a far less yield from these taxes. I think that any body who devotes fair and genuine consideration to the circumstances in which the Budget Estimates were made up last year will come to the conclusion that it was impossible to get anywhere near an exact estimate of what the returns would be.
Let me turn for a moment to the Estimates for the current year. I am told that I have under-estimated the expenditure and over-estimated the revenue. On the contrary, I am inclined to take the view of the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire more readily that that of the right hon. Member for Paisley or the right hon. Member for Peebles. In point of fact, I have no fear or apprehension with regard to the Estimates which I have made for the current j7ear, always granted that there be no untoward event to upset calculations. You might have conditions arising in different parts of the world and in some not very far away from here which may upset calculations. [HON. MEMBERS: "How about the engineers?"]
I am not so much afraid of what the results will be there. I hope to see a comparatively speedy end to that unfortunate struggle. Given normal conditions I think the Committee will find, when we come to the end of the year, that there is a margin in hand for contingencies, even apart from the provision which has already been made for Supplementary Estimates.
Let me remind the Committee of the kind of considerations to which the hon Member for North-East Derbyshire referred. We may hope to have, as a result of this year's working, some revival in trade, and if we get that there will be an increase on our expectations of the yield from Customs and Excise. We may also expect to get rather more than the estimate which the Excess Profits Duty has been credited with in the present account, owing to the fact, already stated, that the cost of money is lessening and that accordingly many people who in other circumstances would not be paying Excess Profits Duty in the present year, will be in a position to pay and will get financial accommodation which will tend to make the return under that head certainly as great as, and probably rather greater than, that which I have estimated. In the same way the Income Tax figure may very well, in the circumstances which we foresee, be exceeded. To put it briefly: the estimate of revenue has been made upon a reasonable and conservative basis rather than upon an exaggerated view. As to the expenditure, I do not think that what we have anticipated will be in any way exceeded.
I am told that I have not placed the figure for Supplementary Estimates, i.e., £25,000,000, high enough. The ground upon which that criticism is made is, in the main, that the Supplementary Estimates of last year turned out to be a figure immensely larger than that anticipated for this year. Again I ask attention to the circumstances of last year. We anticipated Supplementary Estimates last year of something like £97,000,000. Why? The coal strike had already begun. [HON. MEMBER: "Lock-out."] The coal stoppage had already begun, and we had to make some kind of estimate as to what that would cost the National Exchequer. In fact, it cost just over £25,000,000 in direct payments. But there were other payments which had to
be made. There were payments to be made under the railway agreements, signed at the beginning of the War, on which a settlement had still to be reached. Last year that cost us just about £44,000,000. Therefore you have in those two items alone, which will not recur this year, a figure of something like £70,000,000. Then there was the settlement under the Corn Production Act. [HON. MEMBERS: "Your own fault."] The question is not whether we were right or wrong, but the necessity of payment. That cost £20,000,000. These are three items which are not recurring this year and which cost £90,000,000 between them. The Supplementary Estimates, apart from those three items, cost last year something like £30,000,000. This year, when we are in a position to make much closer Estimates than last year, I estimate that we shall be able with £25,000,000 completely to cover them. I may prove to be wrong, but at any rate the argument based on the experience of last year cannot be used against me.

Mr. MARRIOTT: They averaged £100,000,000 for three years.

Sir R. HORNE: That may be, but the conditions arising out of the War a year ago, and still more two years ago, were very different from the conditions now. You could not then by any chance estimate as closely as you can now, as to what your particular payments were to be in the year to follow. We are gradually escaping, and I hope have almost escaped, from the conditions which followed the War, conditions which necessarily upset all calculations. That being so, surely we are now in a position to make very much closer Estimates than we were at any earlier date. If I am wrong, I should be the first to be blamed, but at present I put that point of view to the Committee with considerable confidence.
There is another criticism. A great deal has been said about expenditure by people who, after all, give us comparatively little help. Particular questions arise affecting, I suppose, the popularity of hon. Members in their constituencies, and their courage fails them. I have had more addresses upon the question of expenditure from the right hon. Member for Peebles than from any other Member of the House. Only the other night there was brought up the question of Old Age Pensions. The proposal would have cost the country another
£14,500,000 a year, not a mere charge for one year, but a more or less permanent charge upon the finances of the country. My right hon. Friend was in the House, but we did not get any help from him either in the Debate or in the Lobby.

Sir D. MACLEAN: Perhaps it may interest my right hon. Friend to know that I did a very much more difficult thing with regard to this very question than to make a speech in this House, and that was that last Thursday I faced my own constituents and said in reply to a direct question that, however desirable these reforms might be, this year, at any rate, they could not be granted, owing to the financial position of the country. That was a much more difficult thing to do.

Sir R. HORNE: I am very glad that my right hon. Friend's courage increased from the time he was here to the time he met his constituents.

Sir D. MACLEAN: I was not here at all during that Debate.

Sir R. HORNE: If my right hon. Friend says so, I accept his statement at once. At any rate the opportunity was afforded to him to help us in the matter. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Leith Burghs (Captain W. Benn) was in the House and voted for the expenditure. I am entitled to put it to the Committee that there are very many people, who are anxious to talk about the reduction of expenditure in general, but are very unwilling to give a vote upon any particular question which is at issue. I would like in that connection to refer to some of the other criticisms which we get outside this House, because we do not follow the recommendations of the Geddes Committee in their entirety. I observe that that charge is laid against us repeatedly in the public press, but some of the journals which persistently make that criticism have never given their readers any indication they they would support the Geddes Committee proposals for the cutting down of educational expenditure. They carefully abstain from expressing any point of view on that great topic. I would like the people who make these criticisms to say boldly whether they accept the Geddes Committee proposals with regard to the cutting down of educational expenditure, the cutting down of Naval expenditure—to which I see very
little reference in these journals—and the proposals with regard to a reduction in the cost of the Royal Air Force. If we get some indication of opinion in favour of these views we may obtain some practical result, and if public opinion were really to be educated in these directions perhaps it would be more easy to effect the reductions.
I turn to the question which has been raised as to the position of the debt. My right hon. Friend seemed to be in some doubt as to the particular figures which I presented. I have taken the trouble to go into them more particularly since he put his question. The figure I gave as to the amount of cash applied to the reduction of debt in the last two years was accurate. It amounts to £322,000,000. I also gave the figure of the highest point which the debt reached, on 31st December, 1919. It was £7,998,000,000. Of course that was the highest point, I did not compare any figure I gave with that particular figure. I took the figure at the end of the financial year, 1920–21. I gave the figure of £7,574,000,000 as being that to which it had been reduced on the 31st March, 1921. The figure on the 31st March, 1922, was £7,654,000,000, making a difference of £80,000,000. I think my right hon. Friend's question was if we took off £88,000,000 during 1921–22, how was it we had still this addition at 31st March, 1922? That is, as I understand, his question.

Sir D. MACLEAN: My point was I could not follow how it was that if the debt stood on the 31st March, 1919, at £7,484,000,000, and it stood on 31st March, 1922, after deducting that £88,000,000 at £7,574,000,000, how it was that my right hon. Friend claimed so much credit for a reduction of £322,000,000? I now see that what happened was this that after the 31st March, 1919, the National Debt was increased by a sum of between £300,000,000 and £400,000,000, and that increase which was after the Armistice and which really accrued after the 31st March, 1919, was reduced by the sum of £322,000,000.

Sir R. HORNE: That is not what I understood my right hon. Friend to ask.

Sir D. MACLEAN: I now understand it.

Sir R. HORNE: My right hon. Friend has now been diverted to the point which was being made by my hon. Friend who spoke last. I shall deal with that also, but may I give the answer to what I thought was my right hon. Friend's question? By reason of the 3½ per cent. Conversion Loan there was a nominal addition to the debt of £102,000,000, and by reason of the issue of other loans at a discount, and other circumstances, there was added to that about £18,000,000, making £120,000,000 nominal addition to the debt. That has been decreased by £88,000,000, which was paid off in the course of the year, and there was an overlapping sum into the present year to the extent of about £48,000,000, which came from the £322,000,000 which has been referred to as having been paid off. Accordingly, the figure of £322,000,000, which my friend asked me about, is entirely explained. The question which he has now put is as to the state of the debt at the present time as compared with March, 1919, and I shall deal with that.
It is perfectly true that in the first year after the War the National Debt was increased by about £320,000,000, and it has since then been decreased by £322,000,000. I do not understand the precise point my right hon. Friend seeks to make, but he seems to suggest that the Government is to blame in some extraordinary way for that addition to the National Debt in the year 1919–20. How does he suppose that the enormous army which we then had and which could not have been all demobilised at once, could be kept and paid for except by borrowing. Does he imagine that out of the ordinary revenue which we could have raised in these circumstances, we could have kept up an army and navy at the height at which they then were, paid all the gratuities which we had to pay and given the men the particular allowances to which they were entitled, and all of this without borrowing? Instead of making a point for himself, my hon. Friend only makes my point more clear. The fact is, after we have got over the year immediately succeeding the War, in which we were still saddled with enormous expenditure, we have succeeded by the superhuman efforts of this country in paying off £322,000,000 of our debt during the last two years.
Now I turn to the real issue of the Debate which is as to the form which the proposed reductions of taxation take. I gather that there is not very serious complaint with regard to the particular reductions which we propose to make. My right hon. Friend the Member for Peebles certainly took no exception at all to these reductions except in so far as sugar was not included. One of course would have liked to have given a reduction upon sugar as well as upon tea, but it would be a much more expensive thing to do. If we had given any reduction on sugar which would have reached the consumer, it would have cost £11,000,000 a year.

Sir D. MACLEAN: A halfpenny would not go very far.

Sir R. HORNE: A halfpenny would never reach the consumer except in an infinitesimal degree. Accordingly, while one would have liked to give some remission of taxation on sugar it did not prove to be feasible. A question has also been raised as to the Entertainments Tax and one has heard suggestions made from almost every interest in this country, that they deserve some remission of taxation. I think there is scarcely any trade which has not at some time during the last few months, made the suggestion to me that they deserve to have some remission and each of them has given very cogent reasons for what they asked. Had I responded to all these requests, we should have had no revenue at all and I am afraid, so far as the Entertainments Tax is concerned, unless some method can be devised to give me equal revenue to that which I now get from it, it is not possible to remit taxation upon entertainments any more than upon a great many other deserving objects.

Sir D. MACLEAN: Could not you rearrange it?

Sir R. HORNE: I cannot go into details now, but I am afraid it is impossible, at least, so far as the suggestions which have so far been made are concerned. Some Members of the Labour party complained that there was no real remission of the taxation which touched the working classes. That certainly is not true, because we included tea, which is largely drunk in working-class homes, among the articles upon which remission is given. I want to carry the matter further. There is also a remission of taxation upon
income. I am perfectly certain as the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire has stated, that this provides the working man with the chance of more employment and thus of buying the commodities which he wants. Accordingly we have adopted the method which we believe will be most fruitful in providing a remedy for the greatest evil from which we suffer at the present time.
Then the question is put: Have you any surplus from which to give these reductions at all? Are you not in fact really borrowing in order to reduce taxation, and I understand that is the question which is being put by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Peebles. I do not understand that they are entirely supported by those who sit behind them, but I shall deal with the argument as it has been presented. There are, as I explained in the course of my speech in proposing the Budget to the Committee, two forms of debt with which we have to deal. I really divided it on a more close analysis into three, but for this purpose I shall refer to the two forms in which debt may be dealt with. One is by a general sinking fund, and the other is by providing money in order to meet obligations which we have undertaken to the holders of specific securities, and paying off a certain amount of those securities in each year. So far as ordinary sinking fund is concerned, obviously we do not require to borrow at all. All we do is to suspend it. With regard to the other category, I have pointed out that it will be necessary to borrow money in order to meet those obligations, but I have put forward the contention that as we are only proposing to borrow in order to pay off maturing debt we are not increasing our debt. We are reborrowing in order to pay off debt.
That proposition seemed to be disputed by both my right hon. Friends, and I have difficulty in understanding their point of view. Let me put this test. If we are not meeting expenditure, and if we are at the same time borrowing, obviously we must be increasing our debt. If, in point of fact, our debt is not being increased, obviously we are meeting our expenditure. I give the Committee a very simple illustration. Supposing we have three creditors, B, C, and D, and have to provide the money
to meet the annual interest on what they have lent us. B and C are quite content to take the annual interest, but D says, "You are under an obligation to me to pay off £100,000," or whatever the sum may be. We admit our obligation, and go to E and say, "Will you lend us £100,000 which D is entitled to get from us?" We borrow the £100,000 from E and pay off D, and then we are indebted to B, C, and E, instead of to B, C, and D, to the same amount. Can it be said that a process of that kind involves an increase in our debt? How can it be urged that by adopting it we are in any way failing to meet our expenditure? Anybody who understands the business which is carried on daily by this country will see that this is the very process by which we deal with our burdens at the present time. What are we doing every day about Treasury bills? What is a Treasury bill? A Treasury bill is a document upon which we have promised to pay the holder, say in three months' time, a certain sum. When that time arrives, what do we do? We sell more Treasury bills in order to pay off the man who demands his money, and we are doing this every day. What have we been doing all these past years with regard to maturing debt? We have paid off £253,000,000 of obligations which fell due last year, but we were not able to do that out of revenue. Who ever supposed that we could? We did it by borrowing from others to pay those whose securities fell due, and as this is the ordinary process upon which business is done, how can it be suggested either that we are not meeting our expenditure or that we are borrowing to reduce taxation?
The real fact is that we can only judge of our position financially at the end of the year. Either we have covered our expenditure or we have not, either we have a surplus or we have not. The principle upon which this present Budget is formed is that at the end of the year we shall have met all our obligations, but should have no surplus for payment of debt. I hope I have made it perfectly clear that it is extravagant and fantastic to say that by the mere fact of not paying off any debt, we are borrowing to meet reductions of taxation. I admit that my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley knows much more about tinkering with Sinking Funds than I do. I look back
upon some of the things which were done during the course of his administration, and I find that not merely in bad times like these, but in prolific times, the right hon. Gentleman was at the head of a Government which was taking money which by statute had been put aside for the payment of debt in order to meet its current obligations for certain social reforms which were wanted in the country at that time. [An HON. MEMBER: "The Chancellor of the Exchequer was the present Prime Minister!"] I quite agree that the then Chancellor of the Exchequer was the present Prime Minister, but the right hon. Member for Paisley was then Prime Minister, and as head of the administration he was perfectly well aware, I hope, of what was going on, and he was certainly responsible for it. I am a purist in finance compared with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley, and I would never have allowed borrowing under such circumstances, but we are in a very exceptional position to-day. We have, as I have explained, paid off £322,000,000 during the past two years. Is it said that we must go on paying off debt every year?

Mr. RAFFAN: The Prime Minister said so.

Sir R. HORNE: Let me examine that proposition for a moment. Is the proposition that we must go on paying off debt at a fixed amount every year? Let me take an illustration. Supposing two years ago there had been fixed, as seemed possible then, a Sinking Fund of £100,000,000 a year, is it to be said that when we came to a year like this we should have felt ourselves bound, no matter what it cost the country, to find that £100,000,000? Nobody would maintain such a doctrine, I am sure. Probably you would say that you would reduce it, but to what point? To the point at which you could afford to pay it, and if that point is zero the result is that in that particular year you cannot pay oft any debt. I marvel that such a proposition has been advanced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Peebles, and I confess that I agree entirely with the proposition which was put forward by my right hon. Friend the Member for Central Glasgow (Mr. Bonar Law) yesterday, that the only sound maxim to follow is that when trade is good and we can afford to impose high taxation, then we ought
to be paying off our debt to the best of our ability, but when trade is bad we must give it a chance, and not impose burdens upon it which it cannot bear.
I turn to another aspect of this question, which was dealt with in a most illuminating fashion by my hon. Friend below the Gangway, the Member for Mossley (Mr. A. Hopkinson). He took the view" yesterday, which was indicated previously by the hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir W. Joynson-Hicks), that to fail to pay off any debt this year would affect the exchange. I entirely differ from that point of view. To begin with, if we were arguing this question as if we were in a world where human feelings and passions have no effect, we might lay down mathematical or economic laws which, if they were operating in vacuo, so to speak, or in a closed space where no currents ever entered, would no doubt be perfectly accurate, but the world docs not work upon that basis. If you look at the condition of Europe to-day you will find numerous illustrations that the proposition advanced by my hon. Friend last night is absolutely inoperative. If we look at this question of exchange, it is notorious that in some countries the exchange value of their currency is much lower than its intrinsic value, and it is equally true of other countries that their currency to-day, because of psychological causes, stands higher than the proposition of my hon. Friend would ever allow it could be. I do not name the countries, because countries are as sensitive about the appearance of their exchanges as women are of their looks, but I could give an illustration which would show my hon. Friend that the theory which he put forward has absolutely no basis whatsoever. France during the last two years has borrowed enormous sums of money. I think in the last year she borrowed something like the equivalent of £326,000,000 sterling. She borrowed it from her own people, but that kind of borrowing does not affect the exchange one iota. The French exchange, which last year went down, I believe, to 58 francs to the pound sterling, stands to day at 48, and is apparently unaffected by all the borrowing she has accomplished. The real fact is that exchange is not affected by the internal borrowing of a country so long as it is not done by creating fictitious credit or inflation. If the borrowing is
obtained from the savings of the people, there may be no effect upon the exchange whatsoever. That is true, unless you reach a point at which psychological causes make people so distrustful of your credit that they then will not give you so much for your currency as previously, but so long as those psychological causes are not operative, the other matter, so far as economics are concerned, will not affect the exchange one whit. In France to-day you have conditions under which people still believe, and rightly so, in the credit of France, and in spite of all her borrowing the currency, so far from going down in value, has gone up.

Mr. A. HOPKINSON: It would have gone higher if they had not borrowed.

Sir R. HORNE: If the hon. Member suggests that, he is attributing to France to-day a position of credit which I do not think any country in the world could possibly possess.

Lord ROBERT CECIL: What about external debt?

Sir R. HORNE: France has a far greater external debt than we have. She owes both to us and America very large sums of money, and she has not paid off any of it, so far as I know. At any rate, she has paid off none to us and very little to America.

Lord R. CECIL: The right hon. Gentleman made a great point of the fact that paying off external debt is one of the main causes of the improvement of our exchange.

Sir R. HORNE: I did, and the payment off of our external debt to America undoubtedly appreciated the value of our exchange with America. But borrowing from your own people does not affect your exchange at all, if it is not done by creating fictitious credits, except in so far as it raises psychological factors, and only when they are operating will there be any effect on the exchange. My hon. Friend the Member for Mossley went further and advanced another proposition. He said in effect that our failing to pay off any debt this year will affect any funding operation which we desire to make. Again I take a different view, and I do not think it will affect our chances of funding in the very
slightest. Let me explain to the Committee why I say so. In the month of August, I think, I stated in this House that I did not expect that in the last year there would be any surplus with which to pay off debt. Did that affect the small funding operations going on in this country? Not in the very slightest. On the contrary, all the funding operations which we carried through were carried out with great success, and the real fact is that what affects the chances and prospects of funding is the condition of the money market. If there is more money in the market than can fee utilised in industrial operations, the chances of funding are enormously greater, because the people with money have to find some investment for it, and that is why in the last year, combined with the fact that the Government credit stands very high, the conversion operations were made comparatively simple. The result to-day is that the British Exchequer stands in a far more favourable position at this moment than at this time last year. Let me put it this way. If you compare the position last year with this, although we then proposed to put through a Budget which would allow us to pay off some £80,000,000 of debt, and I am now budgeting for no payment off of debt at all, we are nevertheless in a far better position now than we were then.

Mr. A. HOPKINSON: My contention is this, not that raiding the Sinking Fund makes it impossible to produce these conversion operations, but that robbing the Sinking Fund defers for a period the possibility, of carrying out each operation with success—that the right hon. Gentleman would be able to carry out the conversion operations at an earlier date if he was not robbing the Sinking Fund.

Sir R. HORNE: I do not at all agree with that proposition. By paying debt you are, of course, left with less debt to pay off, and I agree that if you pay off a very large amount of debt you may find yourself with your credit so greatly increased that your funding operation is made easier. But the whole point is whether, in the minds of those who are going to give you the money for funding, the situation is going to be so influenced by the fact that this year you are not paying off debt to the extent of 30 millions, that you will not be able to carry
through the funding operation. I feel perfectly sure that, so far as any funding operations are concerned, what we are proposing to do to-day will not in the slightest way diminish our expectations.
Before I sit down, I wish to deal for one moment with the question of the reduction of expenditure, to which I come back. It is said that the only method by which we ought to achieve the reduction of taxation is by reducing our expenditure. I agree entirely that we ought to reduce expenditure by every means in our power, but I wish to point out again to the Committee, at the risk of repeating myself, that we have exercised the greatest possible care in reducing expenditure already, and that although our efforts are not at an end, nevertheless we ought to get credit for the results we have achieved.
7.0 P.M.
My hon. Friend who has just sat down said, in almost so many words, that the Government had done nothing to reduce expenditure. What is the record of the Government in regard to this matter? It is that we have reduced Supply expenditure since the Armistice from a figure of £2,400,000,000 as it was in 1918–19—I agree that that is not a very comparable figure—clown to the figure to-day of £547,000,000, so that we are to-day spending on Supply Services less than one-quarter of what we spent in 1918–19. I agree that that is not a very fair comparison, so let me take the year 1919–20, which is a fair one. In that year our expenditure on Supply Services was £1,100,000,000, to-day it is less than one-half of that total. In the current year we propose to spend £218,000,000 less than we estimated in the Budget of last year. Is that doing nothing for the reduction of expenditure?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: You have changed your policy.

Sir R. HORNE: My right hon. and hon. Friends opposite are very fond of saying that the whole error of our position is one of policy. When the policy is changed they say, "You are not entitled to take any credit for the reduction of expenditure on that account."

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: It is changed so often.

Sir R. HORNE: I wish, however, to point out that the reduction which we have achieved is a very great one. Right hon. and hon. Members frequently talk as though we could have reduced our expenditure after the War was over to something like its pre-War figure at one blow. That is the kind of suggestion which is constantly being made, and they appear to think that even to-day we ought to be back at the pre-War figure. How is it possible to achieve such a result? My hon. Friend who spoke last frequently referred to the amount of money which has been realised from war stores. Does anybody suppose that we could have realised those sums from war stores and other sales without the staff to deal with those stores? Is it possible to get a return of £650,000,000, as my hon. Friend said, from the War Disposal Department, without keeping an expert body of people who know how to sell these stores, in order to get returns which are of great benefit to the revenue of the country? This applies not merely to the Disposal Board, but to a great many other Departments. It was suggested that the Shipping Ministry ought to have come to an end at once, yet it was necessary that it should remain in being for the purpose of realising the very large assets which the country owned, and which, if we had not realised them, would have been scrapped and the country would have had no benefit. Even in this last year we realised;£42,000,000 from the War Disposal Board, £29,000,000 from the Ministry of Shipping, £19,000,000 from the Ministry of Food and the Sugar and Wheat Commissions, and a figure of something like £2,000,000 from timber under the Board of Trade. Does anyone suppose that we should not have been losing money if we had suddenly scrapped all the War Departments and left all those assets to become derelict? Accordingly, the Committee must really take the fair view of what is necessary in the way of Government expenditure. As I have said, we have made great efforts to reduce expenditure to its lowest possible limits. Those efforts are not at an end. I quite anticipate that in the course of the present year we shall make still further reductions in the amount of our expenditure, and that in the following year we shall do even better. It is not
possible for all this to be done at once; it takes time, necessarily, to achieve the best results.
Just one word about taxation. My hon. Friend complained that the burden of taxation which lay upon the shoulders of British citizens was very much larger than that which has to be borne by the citizens of the United States of America and of France. Everybody will agree that the case of the United States of America is scarcely comparable with ours. After all, we went into the War long before they did, we incurred a far greater burden of expenditure than they did, and their resources are immensely greater than ours. It is ridiculous to suggest that we should be in a position to tax our people at the same ratio as the people are taxed in America. Take the case of France. I have just pointed out one of the reasons why the taxation of France is very small. They are mot meeting their expenditure out of revenue. I do not know whether my hon. Friend suggests that that is a method which we should adopt; that we should reduce our taxation and fail to meet our expenditure. If he does not make that suggestion then I entirely fail to understand the gist of his argument. The reason why our taxation has been higher is that we have all the time been making it our object to pay our way, and I hope that is an aim which we shall always steadily keep in view. I think I have covered all the material points raised in the Debate yesterday and to-day. T venture to submit to the Committee that the Estimates which have been put forward are fully justified, and that the reductions we propose are such as will commend themselves to the Committee.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: It is easy, lamentably easy sometimes, for a Chancellor of the Exchequer to be popular. I think on the present occasion that the right hon. Gentleman has aimed, above all, at popularity in the Budget which he has laid before the House. It is desirable, possibly, however, in the interests of the trade of the country, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should seek not so much popularity as prudence in handling the national finances. Certainly the right hon. Gentleman on this occasion has remitted prudence to Saturn, and has allowed the finances of the country to take care of
themselves. In the speech to which we have just listened he has urged that, in making a provision of £25,000,000 for Supplementary Estimates, he was well outside the mark, and that prudent statesmanship was satisfied with that sum for those Supplementary Estimates. I am bound to say, seeing what our expenditure was on Supplementaries last year, that £25,000,000 is a very hopeful Estimate indeed. When you recollect the position in which the country stands to-day, with 2,000,000 people out of work, with the unemployment benefit running out on every hand, so that heavier burdens are thrown week after week on the boards of guardians in this country; when you remember that the boards of guardians are week by week getting larger overdrafts at the bank, so that at any moment the time may come when substantial assistance on a very large scale may have to be made to the guardians in order to keep the unemployed alive; when you remember that during the last year the working classes of this country have had to spend all their savings during the five years of the War and the savings they made during the good year and a half of trade that followed the War, and all that we are faced with to-day—these 2,000,000 unemployed, with the prospect next winter of having far worse times than even those of last winter—then I say that a provision of £25,000,000, £4,000,000 of which has already been pledged since the Budget was prepared, leaving £21,000,000 to meet the financial crises and the economic crises that may well face this country, shows, not prudence, but a gambling spirit which it is undesirable to see in the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
But this Budget was to be, above all, a "Save the Trade Budget." It was boomed in all the papers long before the Budget was introduced as a Budget to save trade. It is the latest panacea of a distracted Government to save the trade of the country. A year ago, every right hon. and hon. Member on the Government Benches was looking pathetically across to the Labour Benches and saying that the only way to save the trade of the country was to cut wages. They said: "If you will only accept lower wages the trade of the country will improve and all will be well with the world." That
was a year ago. Wages have come down all right, there is nothing wrong there; but the trade of the country is worse than before and not better. Therefore that fallacy has failed, as everybody saw-it would fail, because as your wages go down so the purchasing power of the working man goes down, he is able to buy fewer things that he wants, and, consequently, more men are thrown out of work.
Then we were told, with a great fanfare of trumpets, that Genoa was to save the trade of the country, and that all that was necessary was that the Prime Minister should go to Genoa, restore Europe, and the exchanges, and save our trade. Well, that is off. He said he was going to save the trade of the country and restore Europe by pegging the exchanges.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN (Leader of the House): He never said anything of the kind.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Stabilising them, if you prefer the word. Evidently, Genoa is not going to achieve the restoration of the trade of the country. We are now asked to believe that this Budget is going to do it.

Mr. STANTON: Should we fail, we will count upon you.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: That prophecy is admirable and I hope it will come true. I wish to make it quite clear that you cannot save the trade of the country merely by reducing taxation. What improves trade is not reducing taxation but reducing expenditure. If you cut clown your taxation by simply ceasing to repay debt by cancelling your sinking fund trade will not improve by reason of that reduction. If, last year, you paid off debt and this year you cease to pay off debt but instead remit 1s. from the Income Tax, that financial juggle will not help trade. It is infinitely more important to reduce the expenditure of the country than it is to take less in taxes but to pay off less debt. As we on those Benches have said continually, we believe that the only sure foundation for any recovery of trade is to pursue the good, old-fashioned policy of paying off debt. The special argument that we have in favour of repayment of debt at the present time is well known. It has been alluded to by the hon. Member for Mossley (Mr. A. Hopkinson). If you go upon the principle
of paying off your debt, you are more able to convert your loans to a lower rate of interest. It is notorious that we have a large amount of Treasury Bills that have to be met every week. I think there are about £1,000,000,000 of Treasury Bills still outstanding.

Sir R. HORNE: Between £800,000,000 and £900,000,000.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: These bills fall in every week, and have to be renewed. The more Treasury Bills you have to sell, the higher is the price you have to pay in interest on those bills, and when we talk about conversion, it has to be remembered that day by day and week by week this Government is carrying on minor conversions, converting Treasury Bills at a high rate of interest. During the whole of last year they have been converting these Treasury Bills into bills of a lower rate of interest, because the Debt was being paid off, and the finances of the country kept on a sound basis. But now that has come to an end. We are making no provision for paying off Debts. We are to continue day by day this conversion of Treasury Bills, and it may well be, as in 1919, you will have to go on week by week borrowing money, and having to pay more money, instead of less. This system of reducing Income Tax, and at the same time reducing the repayment of Debt may permanently burden the taxpayer with a heavier load. The Labour party, as I have said, base their finance on the good old-fashioned principle of repayment of Debt, and I think that is the soundest attitude for any party in this country to take up. I was amused, and somewhat interested, to see some of the arguments used by the right hon. Gentleman in favour of the non-repayment of Debt. There is a constant interchange between economic arguments and psychological arguments. You cannot appeal to psychology when your economics go wrong, and then appeal to economics when your psychology fails. I recommend sticking to sound economics, and trusting to psychology working out all right afterwards.
The whole point is that if you pay off Debt, you can borrow more cheaply. We on this side propose to pay off Debt, and the only way to do that is by a capital levy on all the wealth of the country. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I expected the
jeers from the people who do not know how a capital levy is possible, consistent with sanity, but year after year we are having capital levies in this country today. Whenever anybody dies, a capital levy is levied upon his goods, at the most inconvenient time for him and his family [An HON. MEMBER: "Not for him."] Obviously the hon. Member is not one of those who is insured against the Death Duties, but, as a matter of fact, this this capital levy levied at death is inconvenient to the citizen, is capricious and falls at an inconvenient occasion, instead of at a convenient period which can be reckoned against. The proceeds of Death Duties, being a tax upon capital, should be earmarked for the repayment of Debt. They should be used to repay capital, taking capital from private citizens to repay the capital Debt of the country. Unfortunately, it is not used for that, but is there any reason which the House can urge against the capital levy, which should be in its incidence, in its graduation, exactly similar to the Death Duties which we know so well? If that levy were earmarked, and solely reserved for the repayment of Debt, then we should be able to see that the finances of the country were really sound.
It is quite impossible to re-establish the trade of this country so long as we have £8,000,000,000 of National Debt round our necks, and I do submit that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in making this year a departure from the attitude of his predecessors, has deliberately taken a step backwards. I remember the Leader of the House making his speech two years ago, showing that the enormous deadweight Debt would be gradually eliminated, until, in 30 years, it was going to vanish. That was sound finance, and now in order to be popular, and not in order to save the trade of the country, all those fine financial principles have been thrown to the winds, and we have the Budget we see before us to-day. This Budget is to be a "save-the-trade" Budget, but, if you come to look into it, how far is it likely to help the trade of the country? I was interested to hear the remarks of the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Holmes). It seems to me the Wee Free party is almost as divided on this as——[An HON. MEMBER: "The Labour party!"] The Labour party are unanimous on this. The hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire
and the hon. Member for Eye (Mr. Lyle-Samuel) are both regretting that the cut in the Income Tax was not 2s. instead of 1s., and the money borrowed to make up the difference.

Mr. LYLE-SAMUEL: No, no!

Colonel WEDGWOOD: This is from the party over which Mr. Gladstone used to preside. Mr. Gladstone would turn in his grave if he could hear the hon. Members. The hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire went further. He said it was to be a "save-the-trade" Budget, that everything should be concentrated on the Income Tax and nothing for sugar and tea. As a matter of fact, any reduction in the sugar duty, any reduction in the tea duty, would be just as good for the whole trade of the country as a reduction in Income Tax. It might Very well be a good deal better. What happens at the present time? If the tea reduction really means something, if it really means a penny off the tea packet, then we shall see the workman's wages going further at the end of the week than they otherwise would do. That penny will be spent on something else. That something else will mean that somebody else will have to be put to work making that thing, and, therefore, the reduction of the tea duty, by reducing the cost of living of the working-classes, will improve the home trade, stimulate manufacture and benefit all the manufacturing industries in the country. It will have just the same effect as a reduction in the Income Tax, and, in some ways, a better effect, because really a reduction in the Income Tax will not help the trade of the country so much as would the reduction of a similar amount in the Corporation Profits Tax. The greater part of the Income Tax comes upon fixed incomes, upon incomes which are based upon preference shares, debenture shares, ground rents and other fixed dividend bearing securities. In so far as the Income Tax reduces the charge upon those incomes, and thereby increases the rate of interest, which everybody who has invested money in those securities gets, it will not benefit the trade of the country in any direct way. It will not reduce the cost of goods; it will not enable prices to come down. Only so far as the Income Tax falls upon ordinary shares or business will it reduce
the overhead charges in the cost of production, and bring down the price of goods to the consumer.
After all, I do not think this Budget is going to be so very good for trade. I should very much prefer to see the abolition altogether of the Corporation Profits Tax, which is a tax transferred entirely to the consumer, and I was amused that the Chancellor of the Exchequer again this year should give way completely to the vested interests. Throe years ago, when the Corporation Profits Tax was introduced, the Chancellor of the Exchequer of that day, the present Leader of the House, discovered as the tax was going through this House that certain companies—statutory companies—would not be able to pass the tax on, and that if the Corporation Profits Tax was levied upon those companies the unfortunate shareholders would have to bear it, and not the consuming public. When he discovered that, he said: "I did not mean that the will exempt those companies from this tax, so that the shareholders shall not be penalised, and will levy it only on those businesses which can transfer it to the consumer." In the case of the railway companies it was to be a three years' exemption. The three years are up, and the present Chancellor of the Exchequer makes the same exemption for those vested interests. They are to continue to escape the Corporation Profits Tax, because, in their case, it would be borne by the shareholders. The taxes that are being reduced are obviously selected, not from the point of view of the effect that they will have upon trade, but from the effect that they will have upon the electorate of this country, and it could not be made more clear than in those sections of the Budget which deal with the agricultural interests. The agricultural interests are not content with reduction of the Income Tax from 6s. to 5s., but they are to get half that taken off, and in future to be assessed for Income Tax upon the rental, instead of upon twice the rental. Therefore, their Income Tax will come down from 6s. to 2s. 6d. That, undoubtedly, is a great boon to the agricultural interests, and they will no doubt recognise that boon and understand that a Government which looks out for its friends is worth being cared for by its friends.

Mr. D. HERBERT: Does the Labour party oppose that?

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Most certainly. We believe that the people should pay Income Tax upon their incomes fairly, and not upon an artificially low valuation, and we believe that any reduction given to big farmers should be extended also to smallholders. But if that were not sufficiently illustrative of the affection this Government has for its friends, I think the other provision as regards land in the Budget is even more so. Agricultural land is to be assessed for Income Tax at its rental value, but land not used for agriculture, but used for parks and accommodation lands, is no longer to be assessed at its rental value, but at one-third—a positive bonus for all who refuse to allow land to be used for agriculture. Deer parks—they are of benefit to the country! The more deer forests the better for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He is bribing them to put down sheep and to put up deer. Good! But I said just now that the Labour party believed that the foundation of any restoration of trade was sound finance and repayment of debts. They believe that there is another step that has to be taken if you are going to have a real improvement of trade. Reducing wages has done no good. That, I think, is recognised now generally. Anyway, we no longer hear that reducing wages is going to save the situation.
Reducing taxation is no good if the reduction in taxation simply means increased debt. Reducing debt is all right, and we shall have to go back to that. We might also, if we want improved trade, reduce all the obstacles to trade that the Government has managed to put in the way. Would it not perhaps be as well for the Chancellor to consider whether there are not some obstacles to trade which might be removed even when he is dealing with this Budget? How much longer are we to have on the Statute Book that interesting relic of a by-gone period, the Safeguarding of Industries Act? How much longer are we going to obstruct the general trade of the country by this ridiculous German reparation scheme? The trade of the country is being constantly upset in these ways. It would really be more helpful to the trade of this country than this Budget can possibly be if steps were taken to reduce expenditure rather than reduce taxation, but also to reduce all those obstacles to trade that the Govern-
ment has deliberately invented in order to obstruct trade.
Obstacles to production might be removed in other directions as well. In the first place, this scheme in the Budget before us of reducing the taxes upon land which is not used is definitely assisting obstacles to production in the country, thereby reducing opportunities for the recovery of trade. The right hon. Gentleman might consider reversing that process and putting a heavier burden upon land which is not to be used for productive purposes, thereby forcing the man who owns that land to cease to be a dog-in-the-manger and allow additional production. It is in the direction of promoting additional production, and the use of the land of this country to produce the things we want in this country that you will ultimately solve the unemployment problem. At the present moment the process is going on almost automatically, and with no assistance from the Government. Week after week we are seeing the price of land in this country going down, and so getting nearer and nearer the possibility of its use. As the value of land goes down labour is gradually able to get access to that land and begin producing the things that we want.
I suggest that in future instead of remitting the Income Tax on agricultural land to one-half, instead of remitting the Income Tax on land which is not allowed to be used for agriculture to one-sixth, it might be as well to arrange, your taxation so that land which was not used was penalised and land which was used had exemption from taxation. In that direction you might find some improvement in production, some improvement in the opportunities for employment, some improvement in the trade of the country. I am confident this Budget will not make things any better. It will give a few more hundreds of pounds to the people who have already got too many hundreds of pounds. It will not relieve unemployment. It will start our finances on the bad track as the finances of Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Hungary, and Russia have trod before.

Sir ROBERT BIRD: I have followed the course of this Debate with very close attention, but there is one point I have failed to hear mentioned, and I would like this opportunity, with the permission of the Committee, to advance it. I do
so with some diffidence as I very recently joined this House, and also because of the circumstances under which I speak. Before developing my point, I should like to express the pleasure and admiration which I felt on Monday at the masterly statement made by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was to me a revelation in lucidity and was absolutely convincing. I regret, however, that the right hon. Gentleman did not find it possible to make some reduction in the beer duty. I am glad, however, that he has this afternoon given some hint of the possibility of finding means to do this by a further reduction in expenditure and by an increasing revenue bringing about a more favourable position later, than the Budget Estimate leads us to think at this moment will be the case. I trust, therefore, if that more favourable position should arise he will not fail to make some reduction in the beer duty, perhaps also in the sugar duty, without waiting until the Budget of next year.
In his criticism of the Budget last night one hon. Gentleman said that without saying that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was deliberately deceiving us, he was in fact deceiving us. I cannot associate myself with such a statement, but I do say, and say it with conviction, that I think the Chancellor is deceiving himself. In the course of his statement on Monday he told us that the Income Tax was the heaviest burden that the country had to bear, and that it was the tax which most affected trade. None of ns will quarrel with that statement. I, as a commercial man, certainly can most heartily endorse it. The right hon. Gentleman then went on to say in effect that the main consideration which weighed with him in applying his surplus to a reduction of Income Tax was that it would produce some mitigation in the burden on trade, and he said that he had been assured by commercial men that the best way to stimulate trade was by a reduction in the Income Tax. When I heard his announcement I rejoiced, but when I heard of the method by which he proposed to stimulate and revive trade, I was amazed at his optimism. To my mind so small a reduction as 1s. in the Income Tax is going to have little or no effect upon trade revival.
The industries of this country are depressed for the major part and in not a
few cases are in a precarious condition. Those which are depressed, but yet are still profit-earning concerns, will say and feel that, although 1s. reduction is welcome—as any concession of the kind must necessarily be welcome—yet that so small a concession can have no influence upon trading conditions and will produce no revival in their activities. I say that, because revival can only be brought about by new enterprises, the seeking of new fields, or the resuscitation of old fields for the absorption of the products of these industries. With the depleted resources with which all industries now have to struggle the inducement which the 1s. reduction in the Income Tax for developments in trade is such that the risk will not be taken. Further, in the case of industries—and there are many of them, alas!—which are no longer profit-earning or carrying on either without a profit or at a loss, this offer of 1s. is nothing more than a hollow mockery.
I appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to give careful consideration to this point and see if it is not possible to make a more generous reduction. I venture to suggest at least 2s. I am certain of this, that instead of him being doomed to disappointment, as undoubtedly will be the case now, that we shall then see some revival. I make this suggestion with diffidence, as I said, because, according to the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, he has been hard put to to find even the surplus which he has devoted to the 1s. reduction. When, however, I see how much has been done already in the reduction of Civil Service expenditure, I cannot help thinking that that little more which would give us another shilling could be attained. It would only mean a reduction, approximately, of one-tenth under the head of Civil Services. A great deal has been done, as he has told us this afternoon, under that head, and I am convinced that with the remarkable combination of forcefulness and amiability which he possesses, if he set himself to the task, he would secure this extra 1s., and thereby bring about that revival in trade which is so earnestly desired by everyone in the country.

Colonel Sir JAMES GREIG: We all welcome the utterance of the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken for the first
time, and we all remember ill this connection the poignant circumstances in regard to the Member who was his father, but whose untimely death has led to his being here. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will be a great acquisition to our ranks. If I may venture to make one comment upon what, he has said, I should say this, that business men throughout the country view this concession as it should be viewed, and are thankful for small mercies from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I did not, however, rise in reference to that particular, but to say a, word upon the subject raised by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) who has just left the Committee. He is now, I suppose, the titular leader of the Labour party. He favoured us with an address on one aspect of the policy of this country which the Labour party hope to control within a short time. He knows that they would favour a sound system of finance.
Let us examine the items of sound finance which they have suggested for our consideration. The policy of the Labour party is by a capital levy to reduce the National Debt. I am not going into the effect of what a capital levy would be further than to say that I imagine it would very largely reduce the value of property of every kind in this country, and that result no doubt commends itself to the Labour party as one of the first items of sound policy. We had suggested yesterday from a Member of the Labour party another method by which the burden of the National Debt might be reduced, and he advocated the compulsory reduction of the Debt. That would mean that the value of the Debt in the market would very largely fall.
Having reduced the Debt by that means and imposed a levy upon the whole of the capital of the country in order to pay off the rest of the National Debt, we should have a party in power which has committed itself to the nationalisation of all means of production, distribution and exchange, so that when they have paid off all the public debt and reduced the capital value of all property, they will then nationalise everything because they believe that there should be no private property at all. Therefore, the sound finance of the Labour party reduces itself to confiscation, bald and undisguised. May I suggest that a little further school-
ing and experience would be a good thing before the accession of the Labour party to office. In response to a question by the hon. Member for Watford (Mr. Herbert), hon. Members opposite have committed themselves to an attack upon the agricultural interest by saying that none of these small and just concessions made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer are sound and justifiable. The accession to power of a party which advocates finance of this description would not be very welcome.

Colonel Sir C. YATE: I wish to join with the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Sir R. Bird), to whose interesting speech we have just listened, in expressing the hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will find himself in a position to take some of the taxation off beer. Every working man and every member of working men's clubs have been hoping that, there would be some reduction this year in the taxation of beer. The hon. and gallant Member for Burton (Colonel Gretton) told us exactly how the case stood, and informed us that the tax upon a barrel of beer before the War was Ts. 9d., and that it is now 100s., and he further pointed out that a reduction of 30s. would take a penny off a pint of beer. I think the good effects produced by taking 4d. off the tea duty will be more than counterbalanced by the language used by working men when they find that beer remains at the present high price. Why the Chancellor of the Exchequer should have gone back on the teetotallers I really cannot tell. I am sure that none of us, looking at the Chancellor of the Exchequer, would suppose that he was a teetotaller himself.

The CHAIRMAN: Comments on the-physiognomy of Ministers, if not out of order, are unusual.

Sir C. YATE: I trust that before long some consideration will be given to a reduction of the tax on beer. The question is, how can equality be effected? I hope that some more measures of economy will shortly be commenced. With regard to Employment Exchanges, can anyone tell us of any employer who ever got the men he wanted at an Employment Exchange or can he tell us of any man who would go to an Employment Exchange in order to get work? No decent working men ever go to an Employment
Exchange. [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw!"] The Employment Exchanges from that point of view are a waste of money. Not long ago the Minister of Labour said there were 16 counties in the country which had no Employment Exchanges at all. They can get on without them, and why cannot the other counties do the same?

The CHAIRMAN: I think the hon. Member's remarks are more appropriate to the vote of the Minister of Labour.

Sir C. YATE: I was only trying to suggest some further economies to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I do not know whether it is out of order to suggest economies, but we have seen how the Geddes Committee recommended large economies in education which have not been carried out. Look at the great waste which is going on in regard to the administration of education where we find inspectors going about in motor cars. Not long ago a school mistress told me that in one week eight inspectors came to her school. I dare not give the name because I do not know what sort of treatment that unfortunate school mistress would receive. In education we see extravagance going on everywhere. Look at the innumerable forms which have to be printed. There is one form which costs 8d. and this has to be sent out in triplicate which means a cost of 2s. each——

The CHAIRMAN: Details of that kind might be appropriate in considering the Estimates of the Education Department, but they are out of order now.

Sir C. YATE: I will conclude by making one final appeal that as soon as possible the right hon. Gentleman will give us a reduction in the taxation on beer.

Mr. LYLE-SAMUEL: I do not think there exists in this House in any quarter of it any great enthusiasm for the Budget. What I think is felt is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made the best of a very difficult situation. This Government has one peculiarity, namely, the more it falls in public esteem the more it rises in its own, and any Minister on the slightest provocation, and indeed without any provocation, will tell you that this is the finest Government that has been known in modern times, and I believe it is now the custom of Ministers to refer to their colleagues as statesmen. The Government's record in finance is really a bad
one. They seem to have suffered from a sort of consumptive optimism which is well known in medicine under the name of spes phthisica, which means that the unhappy phthisic victim at the very moment that he has reached the worst stage has the highest degree of optimism as to the outcome of his complaint. This optimism has resulted in the Government accepting advice as to the industrial and business conditions of this country from various authorities who are not directly responsible to industrial enterprises, but are generally officials holding views directly opposite to those urged by business men.
Let me give an illustration of what I mean by the decision of the Government in the Budget of 1920 to increase the Excess Profits Duty from 40 to 60 per cent. With the exception of the moulders' strike, the decision of the Government to increase the Excess Profits Duty from 40 per cent, to 60 per cent, was the greatest direct attack upon the commercial prosperity of this country that we have yet known. I was then a supporter of the Government, and I appealed to the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, as many others did, not to persist in it, and I asked him to apply one test. On the Third Reading of the Budget I asked him to tell me of a single new business started since that increase was put on, and I asked him also whether he would deny that scores of businesses had limited their activities and plans because that duty had been imposed. I asked him to admit that it was a mistake, and he refused to do so.
8.0 P.M.
But we all know now that it was a ghastly mistake. Certain wise men took advantage of that position to clear out of industry altogether, and if every manufacturer had taken that course, where would business and employment in this country have been to-day? Those who continued in business after the duty was imposed found their difficulties multiplying and their profits absolutely disappearing. I want to say a word rather in sympathy with the hon. Member for Kensington (Sir W. Davison), who referred to the surprise with which he heard the Chancellor of the Exchequer say that anything in the way of reparations he should regard as a windfall. If ever I heard the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, or any future Chancellor, stand at that Box and say that he included on the side of receipts a large sum in cash
for German reparations, I should certainly have the surprise of my political life. It is a great disappointment to the country that there are no reparations in this Budget. If the Government had taken the course they could and should have taken in 1919, some of the money which Germany could then have paid, and would have paid, would now be coming in for the benefit of the taxpayers of this country. But the Government played politics in all their business economics. The Prime Minister made promises so fulsome, so imaginative, so capricious, so obviously founded on a desire to secure political support, rather than to inform the people of the world as to the economic position of the world, that the result of those fantastic promises of, and the pressure of certain Members who felt that they had given pledges which they ought to try to redeem—pledges which I am glad to say I did not give, because my constituents are far too intelligent to be told we can make Germany pay the entire cost of the War—is the position with which we are faced to-day. The people had been told by the Prime Minister, "The Germans shall pay, and I will search their pockets," and the effect is that to-day—and the Chancellor of the Exchequer will correct me if I am wrong—far from having received anything from Germany, more than £5,000,000 of further expenditure has been incurred and is included in our debit and credit account with Germany for the cost of the Army of Occupation, so that not merely have we not received a penny, but we are actually poorer in this year's Budget. It is a gross political fraud.

Sir R. HORNE: Payments have been made by Germany in respect of the Army of Occupation, and it is not correct to say we have not got a penny from that country.

Mr. LYLE-SAMUEL: What I meant to convey was that if one calculates the cost to which we have been put—we, the victorious country—since the Armistice, and what we have received, there is) in fact, no surplus to our advantage, but there is an actual loss.

Sir R. HORNE: Except that we should have had to keep the Army somewhere.

Mr. LYLE-SAMUEL: I am not so sure that if, after the conclusion of the War, world peace had come, these men could not have been more profitable employed, both for themselves and the nation. This question of the international situation is a serious one. I know the anxiety which must prevail in the Chancellor's mind with regard to it. The real tragedy at Genoa is that America, to which reference has been made in this Debate, did not see her way to accept the invitation to attend. After all, America is the only creditor nation in the world to-day, and as far as she was concerned, Genoa would have been a meeting of her debtors. As far as Europe is concerned, it is a meeting of our debtors. We are the principal creditor, and I quite under stand the pride with which the British Chancellor announces to this House that the £25,000,000 duo this year to America will be met, and that the £50,000,000 due next year to the United States will also be met, and that we are going to pay our way. Every Member of this House is proud of that decision. We are told not merely that the money will be paid, but that plans have already been made so that even with the great burdens pressing on the people of this country that result will be secured. The Chancellor of the Exchequer will agree with me that while it is not a little comforting for the people of this country just now, overburdened as they are with taxation, to find that we are the only country in the world attempting to meet our war debts, it would have been a very comforting thing if the Chancellor, in the course of his speech, had been able to tell us not merely what we are going to do with reference to the sums owed by us to America, but what we are proposing to other nations that they should do with reference to the much larger sums due from them to us. Half of the burdens which we are bearing are entirely due to policy, and while it is a satisfactory statement that we are both determined and able to meet our obligations, it would also be a very satisfactory thing if the Chancellor were able to tell us that the Government have some policy by which this international situation is being dealt with.
I want to make one reference to agriculture. There again there could be nothing more tragic than the decisions
taken by the Government at the end of 1920. I was one of the purposeless persons who sat night after night supporting the Government in this House—one Sitting actually extended over 26 hours—in passing an Act relating to agriculture which, within six months, was repealed by the Government. There is no industry in this country which has been so badly dealt with by the Government as agriculture has been. If any Liberal Government had dared to do what this Government has done in regard to finance, and in tinkering with trade and industry, it would have come down at a run. This Government, in 1920, brought in its Agriculture Bill. It set out its agricultural policy. It charged the entire community with the cost of it, and within six months it repealed that policy. We are told that it has roughly cost us £20,000,000, and then, it is added, that is an item which will not recur. The Chancellor of Exchequer will excuse us if we do not thank the Government for the fact that it will not recur. We say it should never have occurred. It is not the right hon. Gentleman's fault. His difficulty is that he has to find the money, but there is nothing in the whole financial policy of this Government that suggests there has been foresight, or the slightest consideration for the pockets of the taxpayers.
Take another little matter to which I wish to specially direct the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I want to ask him if he will inquire what the introduction of the preference on Imperial tea has cost the Revenue since it was introduced in 1919. There we have a further illustration, and a particularly gross one, of a deliberate sacrifice of revenue and of a vicious attack on the normal process of business in order to secure political and partisan ends. The tea trade of the world was in this country. Every penny of taxation on tea went into our Exchequer. I remember that the Leader of the House, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, said, in answer to criticisms on expenditure, "Do not talk about millions; show me how I can save half-a-million." Will the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to find out what was the direct loss to revenue from this fatal and unnecessary interference with Imperial tea? He will find that within the period between the decision being made and now there was a substantial
loss of £10,000,000 to the Exchequer. I appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer because, after all, he has no more reason to hesitate about sacrificing political views than is to be found in the old saying that a man hesitates to sacrifice his wife's relations. The duty of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is to get money, and to see that no policy of any Department deprives the National Revenue of what should legitimately come to it. It cannot be a pleasure to the right hon. Gentleman to hear, as he must be hearing, tales about industry's representatives going to the, representatives of the Treasury and complaining of their lack of capital and inability to meet the Treasury demands. They are treated indulgently and allowed to carry on because it is known perfectly well that the only alternative is to take possession of their businesses. Surely, it would be a pleasure to the right hon. Gentleman, who has to impose this taxation, if he could say frankly that the preference on Imperial tea was politically unnecessary and economically unsound. It is up to him to collect everything he can for the National Revenue.
Incidentally, I may remark that 92 per cent, of the tea trade in this country comes from the Empire and only 8 per cent. from China. Everyone who drinks China tea does it, not because he cares for it, but because he follows a certain form of religion in the pursuit of which it is a necessary test. I a very glad to see that the right hon. Gentleman who was responsible for this preference has now come into the House. I repeat that the introduction of the preference on Imperial tea was not required to further the interests of the tea trade and that it has cost the revenue substantially £10,000,000. May I ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a note of this point. The 4d. reduction, as I understand it, is on foreign tea, and the reduction on Imperial tea grown within the Empire will really be only one of 3d. and one-third of a penny. The Chancellor of the Exchequer rather cheered the hearts of Members the other night by saying there was a flat basis on which they could work in the distribution of the duty by taking 1d. off each quarter of a pound packet. But that will not work in the case of Imperial grown tea. If you take a 1d. off the trade says it represents their whole profit. If only a halfpenny is
taken off the quarter pound packet then the trade will be charged by the public gneerally with profiteering. That is a practical point which the right hon. Gentleman should consider.
There is only one other word I would say. I am sure the Chancellor of the Exchequer will agree that what we have to do is to cut down Government activities in all sorts of Departments. Millions have been lost by interference with trade. I sometimes listen with despair to the speeches from the Labour Benches on this subject. I hear them talking about a capital levy which would mean the end of our entire industrial system by which every class in the country is supported. I look forward to the Government responding to the pressure which is being-brought to bear from all parts of the country to secure a return in our political life to wiser methods, to acceptance of responsibility for those things which affect individuals. The Government is interfering in far too many things which involve considerable charges on the Exchequer, and until it limits its functions, until it ceases-to be generous, until it ceases to seek political purposes in order to do various things—until it becomes just to us all, there will be no real reduction in our national expenditure.

Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

Committee to sit again To-morrow.

WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION.

Mr. WALTER SMITH: I beg to move,
That, in view of the unsatisfactory state of the law relating to Workmen's Compensation, and of the fact that the War Addition Acts expire at the end of this year, this House is of opinion that a Government Bill to amend the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906, should be introduced and passed during the course of this Session.
I hope that if, in moving this Resolution, I curtail my observations, it will not be taken as an indication that we do not attach the greatest importance to this subject. Rather do we desire that the fullest opportunity should be given to discuss the question, and for that reason I shall be as brief as possible in introducing it. I can only hope that the reply of the Minister will be of a satisfactory nature, because there is no doubt in our minds that the matter is one of the greatest importance, and one upon which
legislation is long overdue. This question is most urgent, and for more than one reason. During the period of the War, a special provision was made in regard to this matter, to meet what was known and understood to be a war-time condition; and I think it will be recognised and admitted that that war-time condition, so far as regards prices and cost of living and the difficulties of life generally, has not passed away, nor will it pass away in any permanent degree, so far as one can judge. The legislation that was passed to meet the difficulty does automatically lapse at the end of this year, and that makes it imperative that something should be done in order that the unfortunate people who suffer from these accidents shall not be driven back to the pre-War position. I can scarcely imagine, in the case of the industrial worker who is unfortunate enough to have met with an accident, whether it be fatal or otherwise, that any Member of this House would desire either to see that worker's dependants left exactly in the same position as in pre-War times or, if the accident be not fatal, to see the worker himself left exactly as he was before the war-time legislation was introduced. I cannot conceive that any Member of this House would suggest for a moment that a maximum amount of £300 as compensation for the loss of a husband is adequate. It fails entirely to meet the needs of the case, and it is quite evident, in times of industrial disaster, that there is generally expressed in the minds and the actions of the people great sympathy with those who are its victims; and yet we have to realise that, unless something is done in the way of legislation, all that a widow will have to look forward to, as compensation for the loss of her husband, is a maximum amount of £300. I think it will be admitted that the claim we are making for some legislation is absolutely justified from that point of view.
There is another reason why we have a right to urge upon the Government the necessity of introducing legislation upon this question. It is that the Government itself has recognised the need for such legislation. Some time ago the Government set up a Departmental Committee to investigate and inquire into this matter, and that Committee conducted a very extensive investigation. They
examined the question in all its aspects, and it is now some time since they submitted their Report. It is true that that Report was not a unanimous Report, for there was a dissentient minority who were in favour of more extensive recommendations; but, as regards the main body of the Report, it was unanimous as representing something to which all the Committee would subscribe. The minority merely dissented because they wished for something more. In the Majority Report there was a recommendation in favour of many extensions being made in the benefits and advantages accruing to those who, unfortunately, were injured in industry, or to those who might be left because their bread-winner had been taken from them. Therefore, on a question of this description, first bearing in mind the fact that the war-time legislation will lapse automatically at the end of this year, and, secondly, having regard to the fact that the Departmental Committee, after considering the question fully, recommended extensions of the amount that can be claimed and paid to persons who are injured, we claim that we are justified in coming to the House with this Resolution and in asking for support for it. I sincerely hope that that support will be accorded to us, and also that the reply of the Minister will be satisfactory.
I should like to say that we would wish that there were less need for our making this claim. We wish it were possible to say that the number of accidents occurring was diminishing, and that the need for putting forward claims on behalf of workpeople and their dependants was becoming less and less. Unfortunately, however, the opposite is the case. The tendency is for accidents to increase rather than decrease, although one would have to admit that last year the figures were in the opposite direction. I believe, however, that the last returns available are explained by the fact that such large numbers were unemployed, and that the reduced figures were not due to a smaller proportion of accidents on the average of persons engaged in industry. I should like to draw the attention of the House to the far-reaching character of this question, when viewed from the standpoint of the number of people affected by it. Every year 500,000 accidents occur. That is an enormous figure. Half a million
people are either killed or injured in this country every year, and it is quite obvious that, where the accidents are fatal, the dependants must be left in a very precarious position in our present circumstances, and having regard to the fact that it is something for which the individual cannot be held responsible, I do hope that the seriousness of the situation will have full weight with the Government. Of the number I have mentioned, 430,000 are compensated, and sometimes, when industrial questions are under consideration, we are told how much the country suffers, and how great is the loss to industry because of the loss of working days and the reduced productivity of the country on account of the absence of men from their work. And yet my calculations lead me to this point, that the time lost through men being injured represents no less a figure than 14,000,000 days each year. That is an enormous figure, and while it may be argued that if the law is amended in order to give greater compensation it cannot affect that figure, at least some of us have reason to believe that if the liability is greater upon industry there may be a greater tendency to introduce safeguards whereby the accidents may be reduced to a minimum, and we emphasise that point because we feel that it has an important bearing on the question.
It is difficult to introduce questions affecting the working classes in this House without meeting with some objection. We are always being told that we are seeking to place greater and greater burdens upon industry. The last speaker who was addressing the House on another subject referred to us on the Labour Benches as always putting forward suggestions and ideas which would increase the burdens on industry rather than lighten them, and it may be that even upon this side we shall be told that if that which we are seeking is conceded it will result in a greater burden being placed upon industry. But I should like to ask in anticipation of that form of criticism, upon whose shoulders should this burden rest? Someone has to bear it. It is not a thing which can be avoided. It is a burden which someone has to carry and either it has to be the industry with which the injured person is associated or it has to be the injured person himself. On the other hand there is another source from which it can be met in the
event of a person becoming destitute, and that is that the board of guardians may have to come to a decision. If there are only three sources from which the money can be found, either the industry, the individual himself, or a public authority, I ask, which in the name of justice and common sense is it right that we should put the burden upon unless it is the industry itself? We had a case recently which illustrates vividly the dangers to which working people are exposed, namely, the explosion in Staffordshire where little girls were engaged in emptying cartridges. That may be an extreme case, but it illustrates the form of danger to which workpeople are subjected. It may be that in some instances, through the power of their trade unions, they are able to compel a recognition of the right form of safeguards which ought to be provided, but in many instances, through the lack of organisation, through the lack of a power which they would be only too anxious to use if they possessed it, they are left open to the dangers which produce most unfortunate results from that point of view.
Therefore, having regard to these facts, we feel that we are bringing forward a matter which is urgent in the extreme, which is of the gravest importance and upon which we hope the Government is going to meet us in a very material fashion. I hope the Home Secretary will be able to tell us that it may be possible to carry these improvements in the law even to those who are already drawing compensation for accidents which have occurred in the past. The difficulties that beset the workman's life under circumstances like these are very great and having regard to the fact that he is carrying out what is after all a public service in working in the various industries which lead to the production of wealth, if disaster overtakes him he will have a perfect right to be protected to the fullest possible extent. I should like to ask whether it is not possible in dealing with this matter for the Government to consider whether or not it is possible to take over the whole question of insurance. This is not a new idea. It has been done in the Colonies. I believe the Government of Queensland have taken this step and by the economies effected, and by merely using the money for the purpose of paying the benefit which the law provides for and reducing the working ex-
penses which are attached to the ordinary insurance methods, to say nothing of the huge profits which are made out of this form of business, they have been able to develop a system which has been helpful not only to the people concerned but to the public and they have been able to use funds which have been left over for other purposes. This is a question which we should like to see discussed as fully possible from all sides. We believe it is a matter upon which a great deal of support is forthcoming for the idea that we are putting forward and in order that it may be given the fullest amount of expression, without further comment I beg to move:

Mr. GRUNDY: I beg to second the Motion.
I do not think I need attempt to deal with the reports that have been mentioned. Both the majority and the minority reports recommended some increase in the amount of compensation, both weekly and in fatal accidents, which are at present being paid. The weekly payments went up from £1 to 35s., an increase of 75 per cent., but I hold that that was altogether inadequate. I remember a year or two ago making inquiries at the board of guardians in the area in which I live and I found that in poor relief alone that board of guardians was granting between £1,000 and £2,000 per year to people who were receiving insufficient weekly payments in the shape of compensation. I hardly think any hon. Member will think it right that Poor Law authorities should be called upon to supplement what in my opinion it is the duty of the industries to bear. In one of our most dangerous trades, coalmining, with approximately 1,200 fatal accidents: per year, and with thousands of miners who come on to weekly compensation for injury, the payments for compensation are-the equivalent of 2.44d. per ton. I hold that it is the bounden duty of that industry at least to see that when injury comes the men are adequately remunerated. I am hoping to hear a statement from the Home Secretary that at last something will be done to carry out the recommendations of the Committee. It is a long time since the Committee gave its report, and there have been scores of questions from these Benches asking for legislation on the subject. I hope the Home Secretary will give us some assurance to-night that the Government intend
to deal with this matter as speedily as possible. In regard to the question of compensation, the position of the widows and children of those who have been fatally injured is probably the worst case of all. The present minimum is £150, and it goes up to a maximum of £300 payable to a widow, but there are cases where the man has had a lingering period before he dies, and when his death takes place there is very little for the widow. When the man dies, the amount that has been paid to him is deducted from, the amount payable to the widow. I dealt with these cases at the colliery where I was employed, from the inception of the Act until the time I was elected to this House, and I remember one case particularly where on the, death of the man the widow had only £10 or £12 to draw in compensation.
The Report of the Committee made provision for the continuance of compensation to the children up to a certain age, and I hope that if the Home Secretary intends to legislate upon this matter, that is one of the recommendations which he will not overlook. Legislation is urgently necessary. Whatever increases may be made in the weekly payment, I hope that those who are in receipt of weekly payments when the period of increased payments start will automatically receive the increase. I do not call that retrospective legislation. The main point that ought to be considered and watched is the position of the widow and children of those who are fatally injured. There has been no increase in the amount, and I have pointed out how inadequately and hardly the widows and children are dealt with. The Act expires this year, and it is necessary that something should be done without delay. Let us look at this matter not from a political point of view, but from the human point of view. This is not a political question but a human question, and we ought to look at it in a broad and sympathetic manner.

Sir G. CROYDON MARKS: I want to support the proposal in order that there may be no suggestion that those who are not directly concerned with manual labour, but who have had experience of it, are not in full sympathy with the recommendations of the Committee. I want to join in the appeal to the Home
Secretary that he should treat this, not as a sectional application from one part of the House, but as a humanitarian application to which all sides of the House would wish him to pay attention. The time has long since passed when the employment of a man in any industry can be looked upon as the employment of a piece of the plant. The human element is recognised to-day more than ever. Industry is now required to make provision for the difficulty that arises when a man is not sufficiently employed, and it is far more important that the industry should also have to carry the risk concerned with the employment of those who make the profits in the industry.
I am speaking from some experience, for I was ten years in engineering workshops, and I know something about starting at six o'clock in the morning and working until six o'clock at night. I have seen men who had served many years of apprenticeship in order that they might give their skill to the industry, broken down by accident. An accident happens and a small sum is paid to the man, but nothing like the sum that has been lost by the years of apprenticeship which the man went through in order to give his skill to the industry. The industry should carry the risk to the men engaged in it. Exactly as a man owning property thinks it is essential to protect his property against the risk of fire and damage, a man employing a workman in connection with an industry in which he expects to make a profit should carry the risk of injury that may arise to that workman, in order that when trouble arises it will not be a case of simply displacing one man and then engaging another to take his place, but that there should be some continuing benefit to those who have suffered and to those who have been bereft of the one, perhaps, who was the mainstay of the home by the wages that he earned, and which had ceased. I suggest to the Home Secretary that this should be viewed as something that is essential in modern industry.
We cannot allow those connected with the manual side of industry any longer to feel that they are of a class apart from those who are employing them. We want, if we can, to have a spirit which will produce comradeship in industry, if we are to get the best out of those who are working and out of the industry itself. We can only do that by letting those who
are giving their skill feel that they are not considered as so many hands that are employed. The day, surely, has gone when any employer can consider that he has so many hands in his place, rather than so many human beings to be responsible for. If that day has gone, the human element must be taken into account rather than the mechanical side to which the man may be considered as contributing. There are some industries in which the men form an essential part of what may be considered the mechanical portion. If the man is removed, or the human part is removed, another man or another human part can usually be found to take his place. If a human is thus removed, he should not be considered as being just a part of a plant that has got to be renewed. If he is displaced by someone else, he is to be looked upon as a risk with which the industry is to be saddled, and you cannot proceed to work at that industry without carrying at all times the possibility of risk and danger to those associated with it.
In connection with the insurance the hon. Member for Bother Valley (Mr. Grundy) suggested that the State should take over the whole of the insurance and be responsible for it. My experience in connection with insurances that has been proposed goes to show that competition with insurance companies, with schemes provided by different minds for the purpose of dealing with insurances, produce a far better result in connection with the benefits that are to accrue to those who are insured than would be likely to come from any Government Department. Government Departments become stereotyped. There is no suggestion for betterment, no suggestion for alteration, no need to vary, once a new set of rules and forms has been established. Different insurance companies in order to obtain business must vary their proposals. Therefore I believe that if only the Government would consider that it is essential to impose upon the industries the making of further and better provision for all those engaged in the industry, the insurance companies in this country are able and fit to accommodate their rates and proposals to meet new conditions that would be put down, without any further Government Department being called upon to do as an experiment the work which is now being done by the
insurance companies who have experience in connection with the risks.
We do not want to multiply Government Departments, or to have a new body of officials to do the work that is already done by a body of men of experience. The less we have to do with Government officials associated with the control of industry the better for the industry itself. The industry can best be looked after by those who are associated with it having an opportunity of gathering from one mind or another mind the opportunity for betterment such as it could not get from any one Government Department. There are many Government Departments to-day that are instances of failure that has resulted to that which they have done, where previously private ownership contributed to the service which has been taken over by a Government Department, and I am persuaded that if insurance were to be taken over by a Government Department we should be saddled with many more expenses. We should have another huge army of officials and more inspectors in connection with the industry, and the whole business would be laden with those charges and overburdened altogether out of proportion to the benefits that could accrue. Therefore, if the Home Secretary is contemplating making proposals, which I hope he may see his way to make, not as a demand coming from one section, but as a demand recognised by all who know anything about Industry, I hope that he will not think it necessary also to say that the Government itself must assume a responsibility and must take over the insurance and must be the administrators of the fund to which the industry must pay.
If you impose conditions, there are societies in existence, strong and experienced, who can easily do that which, may be imposed upon them, but if a Government Department takes over these things we shall have an end of betterment. We shall have no competition which may produce improvements in results, we shall have stereotyped forms which cannot be varied, and we shall have less confidence among the workers when they know that this is the beginning of the end of that which they are to receive through a Government Department, who cannot vary unless a new Act of Parliament gives them authority so to do. The various companies now are continually
proposing schemes to meet the different conditions of insurance. If these, companies are given an opportunity they can, and in my opinion will, do much better work than any new Government Department can possibly undertake, and the industries themselves will benefit by having a lesser charge thrown upon them than would be the case if a Government Department were responsible. I want, with all the emphasis I can, to ask the Home Secretary not to imagine that the claim or the appeal comes from that side of the House, but that it comes from all who know anything about industry, and that we make the appeal not because we fear anything, not because we want anything, but because it is right when we are dealing with an industry that that industry should carry the risk which the person himself is utterly unable to bear.

Lieut-Colonel WATTS-MORGAN: I feel that my first word must be to congratulate the Member for the North-east Division of Cornwall (Sir Croydon Marks) on the very eloquent and very humane thoughts and sentiments which he has expressed with regard to the Resolution that has been put so ably and so fully by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. W. Smith). For 16 years, until the outbreak of War, from the passing of the Act of Parliament that first recognised the right of the workers and their dependants to compensation for injuries, I was in charge of a mining district in which there were close upon 40,000 men employed in the coal industry alone, and the part of the work which gave us very great difficulty was the very meagre provision already pointed out by my hon. Friend especially with regard to the injury. Whatever the wages earned the maximum was fixed at 20s. a week and the minimum might be almost down to 5s. or 6s. a week. I do not profess to know exactly what did take place when the 75 per cent, benefits were added, because, as everybody knows, I was engaged elsewhere from the year 1914, but I do want to refer to my experience of 16 years, when I exclusively dealt with this work, both in regard to the inadequate provision made for long standing cases of injury and especially with regard to the fatal accident cases in addition to the cases enumerated by my hon. Friend behind me. We have had some cases from the Rhondda Valley in which the husband was injured and lay on a bed
of sickness or disability, and during four or five years he was unable to come out from the house, and in several cases all we had to take from the colliery company or the insurance company was the funeral expenses due for the burial of the man.
We have had scores of cases where widows have been left with a long string of children. Take the case of a widow left with from four to five or six children. In some cases perhaps the eldest boy might be a girl or might be a boy. [Laughter.] Let me put it in my own way again. What I mean is that the eldest child might not be a breadwinner, even if it were a boy of 12 years of age, for there would be some years more for its maintenance before it could get any employment to bring wages into the family exchequer. We have had innumerable cases where there wore four, five and six children left with a widowed mother, and for years we had a county court judge who would never give us any more in these cases than 12s. a week. The amount might range from 10s. to 11s. or 12s. a week. Scores of times have we appealed to the county court judge, in cases of sickness or want of clothing or want of boots, on behalf of the little children. We could get nothing different because he always made the reply that he must have regard to the provision of the Act that the money must last until the youngest child became 13 or 14 years of age, and he measured the amount of maintenance to the widow on those lines. This is a great hardship, and I hope that when the Home Secretary replies he will deal with that phase of the question. It is in respect of the widow and the children that the amount of £300, or any other amount that can be fixed, is totally inadequate.
9.0 P.M.
We have also men living to-day who have met with an accident 10, 12. or 13 years ago. Some of them have lost completely the use of their limbs. Some have had both their legs off. Some have maimed bodies, and are now being wheeled about in bath chairs, if friends are able to assist them in getting about, and others are obliged to remain at home. We have eases of that kind to-day in the Rhondda Valley, where the men are getting only from 10s. to 12s. and 15s. a week. In no case where they have been totally disabled for life have they received the
maximum of £l a week. Such men, when they meet us from day to day or from week to week, say: "When are you going to do something to assist us and to put our cases upon a just level, and to give us the rights that we ought to receive?" For the last five or six months the workers, especially over the South Wales coalfields, have had their minds agitated very much with regard to the situation. They are agitated because they see that nothing has been done and that no promises are made of anything to be done. They see that the increased provisions which were added to the Act of 1899 and its further amendments, are likely to terminate at the end of this year. I would like to reinforce the appeal already made that at least on humane grounds they shall get the minimum of the Amendments proposed by the Departmental Committee set up by the Home Secretary and presided over by the distinguished and learned Member for the Southern Division of Derbyshire (Mr. H. Gregory). I hope that no opportunity will be lost, and that in these cases, as a matter of right and justice to the workman, we shall have an improved Compensation Act, clearing away some of the present disabilities, and as far as the widows and children are concerned, giving them protection. The Holman Gregory Report, as it is called, defines very clearly the right of the widow and children, separate and apart. That is the minimum that we ought to receive, and a new Act ought to be brought into force as early as possible.

Mr. CARR: I would like to take this opportunity of expressing my sincere sympathy with and my support of my hon. Friends on the opposite side of the House in the Motion they have brought forward. I am one of those who believe that a good atmosphere can be preserved in industry if the right means are taken to create that atmosphere and to maintain it. I believe that the position of the working man, in his state of uncertainty regarding the future and regarding those whom he may leave behind if he be fatally injured, is one of the clouds which prevent a proper understanding between capital and labour and prevent a thoroughly efficient working of industries in a great many respects. I am fortunate enough to take a part in an industry which is remarkably free from either
fatal or lesser accidents. I have found from experience that we are able to provide privately, through the companies which lay themselves out for this work, adequate protection against these risks. I cannot believe that any industry is not prepared to cover itself adequately against any reasonable risk which it might incur in this respect. I believe that some of the burdens from which industry is suffering can be lightened by the taking of such steps as we are discussing. I hope that the Home Secretary will see his way to indicate some measure of relief. We do not want the imposition of more burdens than it is reasonable for us to bear, but having regard to the present economic position of those who can only rely next year upon a pre-War rate of compensation, some addition ought to be made to it, at any rate for a time, in order to relieve the workers according to the necessities of the moment. I hope the Home Secretary will be able to tell the House of his intentions in this matter and that those intentions will be satisfactory to the Mover of the Resolution.

Colonel PENRY-WILLIAMS: I join with the hon. Members who have urged the Government to deal with workmen's compensation and bring it up to date. I do not believe there is a single Member of the House against recognising the principle that an industry should pay compensation for the accidents incurred in it. The only question that remains is as to how we are to arrive at a fair system of compensating sufferers for the injuries which they have sustained. A very curious position arose during the War. Manufacturers and other employers were paying, perhaps, £2 per cent, for workmen's compensation insurance before the War, and they were paying that upon wages. When the War came along and wages advanced to about three times the former amount, they were still paying £2 per cent., and the result was that they were paying three times the total amount of premiums for workmen's compensation that they were paying before the War, and for a great deal of that time the insurance companies were paying the workpeople no increase in the compensation to which they were entitled. Therefore the industries were bearing three times their former burdens, and the workpeople were getting no increase. I rather sympathise with the hon. Member
who has asked the Government to take over the insurance, and to eliminate the private company. If they did so, the Government would be able to devise a scheme which would make the burden on the industry as light as possible and give to the insured persons the fullest advantage that could possibly be given for the premiums paid.
I would ask the Government, if they are thinking of bringing in a new scheme, to eliminate all bargaining with the insured person and to allow a man to know what he is entitled to in case of injury, and also to clear up the difference between a fatal injury and a permanent disablement. There is a very serious discrepancy between the amounts paid in these two classes of cases. It is very often said, and sometimes brutally said, that it is much cheaper to kill a man than injure him permanently, but that is absolutely true under our present system, because whereas a widow and children are left unprovided for, very often and to a very large extent, in cases of fatal accidents, yet in cases of permanent disablement the wife and children are fairly well provided for. I think a Government insurance scheme would insure a rectification of benefit, if I may put it that way. It is very difficult now in cases of accidents which have occurred months or years ago to increase the benefit, because perhaps the employer who is liable in the first instance, has disappeared or the insurance company has disappeared, but if it were a Government scheme, then the Government could fix their premiums on the whole industry 60 as to cover the whole risk incurred for the workpeople, and give the workpeople the fullest benefit possible. It would also help if the Government took over the scheme to ensure that only such sums were drawn from the industry as were justifiable claims for accidents incurred in that industry. Such claims are justifiably a charge on any industry, but any money that is drawn irregularly is a tax on the industry. It would be a benefit both to the workpeople, to the employer, to the industry and to the community generally, to see that only such sums should be paid out of an insurance fund as could be justifiably attributed to the industry concerned. Finally, I ask the Government, when they are bringing in this scheme,
to make it as liberal as possible to the workpeople. It is a very serious matter for a workman to go through life dreading the day on which he may be laid off or disabled by accident. One case was brought to my notice the other day in which a young man of 24 or 25 years of age was disabled. He has a wife and child and he has received compensation at the rate of 12s. 6d. per week, but that sum is less than the unemployment dole to which he would be entitled were he sound and unable to find employment. That is a position which should not be allowed to continue, and I hope the Government will be able to make the payments to the insured people as liberal as possible.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Everyone must have the most profound sympathy with this Motion, and we can all, without exception, give the Government every encouragement that they will get the necessary amending Measure, if it is full and ample enough, put through with the minimum consumption of the time of the House. A great deal of unwise legislation has been passed within comparatively recent years, but the Workmen's Compensation Act was one of the most brilliant conceptions that ever came from the mind of that great statesman the late Mr. Joseph Chamberlain. Its wisdom always struck me as a member of the legal profession in this, that it very largely eliminated litigation and put an end to incurring costs. Previously, we had the Employers' Liability Act, which led to an immense amount of perfectly futile litigation. No doubt these were profitable to the profession to which I belong, but no man in that profession worthy of his salt ever wishes to see litigation go on that could be avoided. I say that not ironically, but with perfect sincerity. The beauty of this Act was that it placed the burden on the industry. That is where I join issue with the hon. Member who last addressed the House, and who wishes to see the Government putting its clumsy and bureaucratic hand into this matter. When it made the employer liable for sums which were small and tentative to begin with, but which extended during the War—and I think the figures given by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Rhondda (Lieut.-Colonel Watts-Morgan) show they are capable of very considerable amplification—the admirable point about that was this, that
not only did it provide guarantees for compensation where accidents occurred, but it was a prevention of the occurring of accidents. The reason is perfectly simple. I had professional experience of it myself in connection with the placing of the insurance of very large works on one occasion. By being able to show that great and extraordinary precautions were taken by the management of that particular works whereby there had been an almost entire immunity from accidents over a very long period of time, I was able to make representations to the tariff office—because all the best of the insurance offices are joined together in this—and on my representations in this particular case, they reduced the rates very substantially because of the freedom from accidents. When you impose this liability upon a particular employer you join his duty with his interests. The first thing that enters his head then, if it has not done so before, is to secure to the absolute maximum the greatest possible immunity from accident for all his workpeople.
Nobody wants compensation for accidents; what they want is to secure that there shall be no accidents. That is what we should all aim at. No money can compensate for the loss of even a finger. We do not want to see any workman mutilated in any shape or form, and there should be every possible step taken to avoid injury of any description. The result of the operation of the Workmen's Compensation Act was that even the most selfish employers—and there are some, I admit—got busy to see that there was as complete immunity as could possibly be secured against accidents to their workpeople, and if you increase the rate of compensation you secure that immunity further and further. I believe it is possible in almost all industries, except mining and those affected by the works of nature, to obtain almost complete immunity, but you have got to get the British working man to take a great deal more care of himself than he does. He is a very courageous individual, and he takes risks that he ought not to take, and many people have wondered at seeing the casual way in which he takes very great risks. I believe that if you once let a body of bureaucratic Government officials shove their clumsy fingers into this admirable scheme, in which the interests of the security of the working
man and compensation if he is injured are so indissolubly welded together, you will divorce the one from the other, and you will have the thing relegated to the mere sphere of compensation, because, mark you, if you insure industry as a whole, you will not have the individual incentive on the employer which you have at present, and if you once let the Government get its hand in, instead of having the impulsion on each employer to do his best for his own workmen, it will be a case of each letting the other fellow look after the matter. That is why I would urge that in the interests of the security of the workers we should keep the Government out of it.
There is one other point to which I would refer. I wish there were more provision made in these Acts for the administration of the funds which are recoverable. Workmen are sometimes persuaded, through zeal and the belief that they can engage in some commercial undertaking in which their previous training has not given them the necessary experience, to settle a claim for a lump sum, and in a few months sometimes the whole sum is lost.

Mr. J. JONES: The insurance companies drive them to do it.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: The bargain is unfair in many cases, and I think there should be more protection given to a man who is not experienced in negotiations and also not experienced in handling comparatively large sums of money. If a man has all his life been mainly engaged in administering a wage coming in week by week, and not in the habit of handling sums of several hundred pounds at a time, I question, with all respect for the liberty of the subject and the right of a man to do what he likes with his own, if it is a kindness to give him full control over a very large sum of money relative to the wages he has been in the habit of drawing, leaving him very often to be the victim of some person more experienced than himself in dealing with financial matters. I think all these bargains that are made for lump sums should be subject to more scrutiny than is the case under the present Act. In fact, I am doubtful whether the Act would not be more wisely administered by considering these payments as being in the nature of alimentary payments and not compounding them for a
lump sum at all, but payable week by week and not arrestable for debt or otherwise, but treated purely as aliment of the worker.
In regard to the administration of payments in the case of children, we have seen from recent disclosures that the Public Trustee Office has now become an expensive means of administration. I am not familiar with the exact form of administration of workmen's compensation funds in England, but we have quite an elaborate system in Scotland, but economical, as most Scotch procedure is, we being brought up to regard waste in any shape or form as a very serious offence against morality. I therefore hope the question of the administration of these funds will also be looked into. Generous provision for accidents should be made, and the liability should be placed, as it is at the present time, on the employer for the particular business that he has. It does not do to say you are putting too heavy a burden on industry. You can be pretty generous, because no workman will seek an accident; he would rather be without it. You can be pretty generous, and if the sum is high, then all the greater care will be taken, and the ultimate burden on the industry will be all the less. I trust therefore the Government will take the practically united opinion of the whole House, and I believe I carry the right hon. Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) with me when I say that, because I know that there is no more humane man in the whole of this House than the right hon. Baronet. I hope the Government will take the united opinion of the whole House in its desire to see that those who happen, in the struggle for life, to suffer accident are property provided for. If they will do this, I feel sure that a Bill of this kind could be passed into law in the briefest possible time, with the universal approval of both employers and employed in this country.

Mr. THOMAS SHAW: The Resolution speaks of the unsatisfactory state of the law and calls attention to the fact that the War Addition Acts expire at the end of the year. I am going to try to show some reasons why we say that the present state of the law is unsatisfactory. The law gives to a workman or workwoman who is injured £l a week as a maximum—
I am not dealing with the War Addition Acts, because they expire at the end of the year, we are discussing the permanent law or the law as it stands at present. It gives as a maximum in case of fatal accidents the sum of £300. These compensations are supposed to be based on a theory which allots half of the loss to the employer and the other half to the workman or workwoman. Surely that is one of the greatest fallacies ever uttered. When a workman is injured, he bears all the physical suffering and he is invariably called upon to spend part of his compensation in extra bandages or medicine, while his compensation is bound down to £1 a week. To say that he is bearing half of the loss and the employer the other half is to speak of a theory which is absolutely wrong and has no foundation in fact. I should like to refer, in passing, to one or two of the gentle criticisms of the hon. Member for Springburn (Mr. Macquisten), whose speech we on this side have heard with the greatest possible pleasure, as we have heard all the speeches delivered up to the present by hon. Members. So far as hon. Members in this House at the moment are concerned, evidently workmen's compensation is worthy of consideration. But there is a vast class of hon. Members outside the Chamber, and of employers also outside the Chamber, and perhaps we had better get the details in order that the law may be known, because the hon. Members now in the House will not decide the issue.
I look upon workmen's compensation as it ought to be in quite a different light from that in which it has been regarded up to the present. A man who is definitely injured in the course of his employment ought to be like the soldier; he should be got better as quickly as possible; he should be got back to his work as quickly as possible, and he should certainly suffer no loss financially on the top of the pain he has to endure. For that reason, I believe that the real compensation to the workman who is injured ought to be full wages and the necessary medical and surgical appliances required. Then the workman would boar the pain as his share. I know the argument that has been and will be used against that theory. I heard it used in a Committee of which I had the honour of being a member. It was said that there would be malingering—I beg pardon, that
was too strong a word; it should be replaced by the word "inertia," which means exactly the same thing, and which was a polite way of gilding the insult and sugaring the pill. It would be folly on the part of the employers of this country if, on this subject, they did not take a generous view. The hon. Member who first addressed the House upon this question from the opposite benches called attention to a fact that is too seldom recognised in industrial life, namely, that workers are not mere hands, but sentient beings with brains and feelings. Treat them as men and women, let them feel that they are actual living realities and are looked upon as such; do not try and screw every possible farthing you can out of the compensation. The employers of the country will do more good by adopting a generous attitude than by a hundred attempts to screw down the compensation as low as possible. Generosity will pay both the employer and the employed, and I appeal to the Home Secretary to bear this in mind.
With regard to the maximum in case of death, surely it is the most cynical thing in the world to appraise the life of a workman or workwoman at a £300 maximum. If ever there were a cynical assumption in this world it is that a workman or workwoman cannot be worth more than £300. Assume, for instance, that the recommendations of the Holman Gregory Report were accepted, what would they really mean as a burden on industry? I am not accepting the theory that this is a burden on the employer; it is a burden on the industry in which the workman pays his part, as well as the employer. It is a fairly safe assumption to make that the whole of the compensation required in perhaps the most dangerous industry in the country, that of coal mining, to pay full wages and to pay the full Holman Gregory scale—I am sure I shall be pardoned by the hon. and learned Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Holman Gregory) if I speak of that scale in that way. The words are used in the circle in which I move with the greatest respect—if we accept that it is extremely questionable whether the whole of the costs included would mean one-halfpenny on I cwt. of coal. I think that is the fact of the matter. [HON. MEMBERS: "No. Nothing like it!"] I am stating my figure, that it would not cost one-halfpenny on 1 cwt. of coal. That
makes the attempt to refuse an absurd attempt from the point of view of the coalowners as well as the State. The present law is faulty because of the method of calculation of the damages. Take the great Lancashire cotton industry, which has been depressed for well over 12 months. If a workman in that industry met with an accident to-morrow the probability is, if he were permanently injured, that his compensation would be not more than 10s. per week. If we had a year of good trade, another workman injured a year hence might, if the law were amended, get 35s., £2 or £2 10s. per week for exactly the same injury, incurred in exactly the same way. The law, when amended, should contain a definite minimum, and the method of calculation should be based on the average weekly earnings for a full week's work, in order that a workman or workwoman should not go through his or her life permanently injured and be paid a miserably insufficient sum because, on the top of the injury, he or she had the misfortune to be compulsorily idle during a large part of the 12 months previous to the accident occurring.
May I turn now to the question of the system of insurance? I do not share the fears of some hon. Gentlemen opposite that State Insurance would lead to bureaucracy, incompetency, and heavy cost. Let us see what the position was before the sitting of the Departmental Committee. There were a number of insurance offices which combined to arrange a certain tariff of charges, so far as they were concerned, a monopoly in effect, and a very small proportion indeed of the premiums paid to those companies got into the hands of the injured workmen. I believe that a State system of insurance could be worked cheaply, could be worked effectively, and would be the best possible means of putting a finger on the pulse of the accident system, with a view to obtaining the object of the hon. Member opposite, who spoke of the prevention of accidents rather than the paying for them after they have occurred. I think we ought to have, but I have no hope at all that in this House we shall get, a State system, but, failing that State system, surely there is one protection which the worker ought to have. He ought to have an absolute certainty that if an accident happens his
compensation will be safe. That guarantee he has not got now. There ought to be a system of compulsory insurance. There can be no statistics laid down on this point. Every man who has worked in a trade union knows what takes place when, what we know as a small employer—a man employing three, four, five or a dozen men—has a serious accident on his premises. This man very often is not able to pay the compensation to which the workman is fairly entitled. Nobody knows what takes place. The workman receives something, nobody knows what, and the thing is settled.
That can be surmounted by a system of compulsory insurance, but I suggest you cannot make an employer insure, or it would not be right to make him insure, unless you give him a guarantee that the very compulsion you are exercising will not be used to his detriment by the insurance company with which he must insure, and I suggest to the Home Secretary that if he cannot give us State insurance, at any rate he will give us compulsory insurance, and, at the same time, give the employer who must insure the certainty that his premiums shall bear some resemblance to the amount of benefit that is paid to the workers out of those premiums. Then I suggest that an alteration is necessary in the law with regard to that peculiar combination of words, "arising out of or in the course of his employment," and I want to suggest that definitely simple words should be used saying that if a workman be injured at his work, compensation should be paid. It is perfectly true that workmen are sometimes too bold and break regulations. I think that miners have been known, in their eagerness to work and to increase production, to break regulations. I notice that the right hon. Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) applauded the sentiment that workmen were too bold and broke regulations.

Sir F. BANBURY: I think it was an hon. Member below me who said that workmen were sometimes careless, and I agreed with that.

Mr. SHAW: I have not the slightest desire in the world to misrepresent the right hon. Gentleman, but may I most respectfully suggest that if the railway-
men of this country carefully carried out the regulations of the railway companies, immediately they would stop the whole of the British railway service?

Sir F. BANBURY: The hon. Member cannot expect me to agree with that.

Mr. SHAW: I do not expect the right hon. Gentleman to believe anything that is unpleasant. I merely stated a thing that is accepted as a fact by many men who ought to know. I want to suggest, in conclusion, that it is no use thinking that the present situation with regard to workmen's compensation can last for many years longer. The whole thing is unsound. If the theory were correct that the man and the employer share the burden, the principle would be wrong. The industry ought to carry the burden-Put all the safeguards you like against what is known as malingering. Do whatever you like to prevent malingering, but I suggest from my own experience that the danger has always been in case of accident, not that the worker' has remained at home too long, but that he has resumed work too soon. You can do better by generosity than by cheeseparing. I am appealing to the House and to employers outside that it is time to look upon this matter with an open mind and a generous heart, believing from the bottom of my heart that if they take the humane view, if they will face the matter from the point of view of flesh and blood, if they will try their best to let their action be as generous as possible, they will be rewarded a thousandfold by the feeling on the part of men and women that their employers are more than mere paymasters, and industry will benefit tremendously by the better feeling that will exist if the workmen and workwomen feel that their employers are meeting them in a generous, open-hearted way.

Mr. HOLMAN GREGORY: As the Member of this House who presided over the Committee which considered the subject under discussion a year or two ago, it is fitting that I should take a small part in this Debate. My sympathies are entirely with the Motion. There is no question that it is time that the law relating to workmen's compensation should be reviewed. It is an interesting fact that when the subject was first introduced into this House in 1897, it was entirely novel. To-day, workmen's com-
ponsation is part of the statute law of every civilised State. An advanced system of workmen's compensation was established in Russia in 1913. To-day the law relating to compensation is more in favour of the workman in nearly every other country than it is in England. Why is it that as the law has been accepted in other countries provision has been made for the greater advantage of the workman? It is because it has been recognised that it is not only due to the workman that ho should be generously treated in the event of injury and that his family should be generously treated in event of his death by accident, but that it is of advantage to the State that this generosity should take place. The workman, in common with every one of us, is practically useless to the State or to industry if he is not producing. If he is injured so that he cannot produce it is to his advantage, to the advantage of his employers, to the advantage of industry and to the advantage of the State that he should be cured as quickly and effectively as possible. All that is reasonable that shall bring that about is one of the most important things upon which a State can enter.
It has been suggested by several hon. Members who have addressed the House that the benefits should be more generous than they are at the present moment. That subject was considered very carefully by the Committee over which I had the honour to preside. We did suggest additional benefits to the injured workman. I hope that all employers will carefully read the Report of my Committee. I am convinced that if they do they will come to the conclusion that the majority of the Committee were right when they suggested the additional payments. The Committee also had before them the position of the total dependants in the case where the workman is unhappily killed. They found many anomalies. One fact stood out above all others. In cases where the workman is killed the widow suffers severely, but the prospects of the children are often hampered and crippled, and in many cases altogether ruined. In these circumstances the Committee endeavoured to work out a scheme which would provide compensation for the widow and, as we thought, would provide effective allowances for the children. It was not an expensive scheme. It was one which certainly ought to be con-
sidered, and passed, I think, without any difficulty.
From information conveyed to me I know that many employers think that the provisions suggested in the Report will prove too expensive to industry. There must, however, be some misapprehension in the minds of the employers. It is admitted that the employers themselves will not pay. The provision for assurance against workmen's compensation is part of their establishment charges. It adds to the cost of production. The person who eventually pays is the consumer. The costs of the Amendments proposed in the Report will not add to any material extent to the cost of production of any particular article. Arrangements were made at the time the Report was pie-pared with the insurance companies by which they were ready to reduce their working expenses, and the benefits that they reaped from the premiums charged; and the members of the Committee were satisfied that in no trade except the most expensive—the coal industry—would the cost of workmen's compensation amount to a penny, and in most cases it would be a fraction of a penny, in the £ on the cost of production of any article manufactured to-day in England. Thus the cost of workmen's compensation should not in any way affect the sale of an article, and could hardly affect the pockets of persons who buy it in the retail shop at a later date.
I hope that, this subject will soon be considered by the House. Before, however, it is considered, I trust that hon. and right hon. Members will do the Committee the honour of reading and considering their Report. If they do so they will, I think, come to the conclusion that there is a way in which workmen can be benefited to a much greater extent than they are at the present moment. They will come to the conclusion, I think, that, if workmen are benefited in that way it will be for the good of the State and to the benefit of industry in general. Everybody to-day agrees that what is wanted in this country is confidence between masters and workmen. What better basis for this can there be than the subject we now have before us? I cannot help thinking that in this, as in other matters, if the subject were really seriously considered by the employer and —if I may say so—if employers were properly approached by the workmen,
that there would be a consensus of opinion that the workman is entitled, if injured in industry, to be made well at the expense of the industry, and that the widow and children of a man killed are likewise entitled to fair compensation.
If that conclusion be agreed upon, I cannot help thinking that employers and workmen would also come to the conclusion that the Committee over whom I had the honour of presiding arrived at a very fair compromise between the different parties in the recommendations set out in the Report. I hope that the Government, acting through the Home Secretary, will see their way this Session to introduce a Bill to give effect to the recommendations contained in the Report. If there is any idea that the Members of this House will be hostile to those recommendations, or that some hon. Members will be hostile to them, I believe that after discussion there will be no opposition. In that belief I urge the Home Secretary to take steps to introduce a Bill without delay.

Mr. SEXTON: The discussion up to now of this question is very encouraging, and I should think it requires little more to influence the Home Secretary. So far, the discussion has been confined to one particular point, but may I call attention to the terms of the Resolution, which are as follow:
To call attention to the question of Workmen's Compensation; and to move, That in view of the unsatisfactory state of the law relating to Workmen's Compensation and of the fact that the War Addition Acts expire at the end of this year, this House is of opinion that a Government Bill to amend the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906, should he introduced and passed dining the coarse of this Session.
10.0 P.M.
There are other Acts affecting workmen's compensation. I believe there are three or four Acts dealing with compensation to workmen in a different way to the Workmen's Compensation Act. There is Lord Campbell's Act; the Employers' Liability Act: and on the top of those comes the Workmen's Compensation Act. It is not only a question of amending the Workmen's Compensation Act, but the codification of all the Acts dealing with compensation to workmen. I will give my reasons for this. I might as well remind the right hon. Gentleman that the pigeon-holes at the Home Office are pretty
well stocked with suggestions on this matter from the Labour party. The Employers' Liability Act gives compensation on the basis of a full wage and compensation for death is the same under both Acts, but under the Employers' Liability Act you must establish to the satisfaction of a jury the fact that the employer had some knowledge of the defect of the machine, otherwise you do not get compensation. The Workmen's Compensation Act only pays 60 per cent, instead of the full wage, and this Act has gradually taken the place of the bigger Act. Since the passing of the Workmen's Compensation Act in 1597 and the passing of the Employers' Liability Act in 1882 a new condition of things has arisen, and very often those who do not know the conditions of the later Act accept the principles of the Workmen's Compensation Act without inquiring into their rights under the bigger Act. The result has been that gradually the Workmen's Compensation Act has been accepted in cases where I know that a good case existed under the Employers' Liability Act. Although I am grateful to the Committee which sat under the chairmanship of the hon. and learned Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Gregory) for going as far as they did, I cannot accept the principle of 60 percent, offered in the Holman Gregory Report. There is only one solution of this difficulty, and it is that the equivalent should be made the same under one Act as it is under the other so that a man shall not be deprived of his rights under the Employers' Liability Act.
The hon. Member for Preston (Mr. T. Shaw) referred to a most iniquitous instance of a decision under the existing Workmen's Compensation Act, and I would like to give one or two examples. Two men were killed putting on the hatches of a ship. They had finished a day's work with the cargo. It seems that the combings of the hatches were defective, and the hatch gave way, and they were both precipitated into the hold of the ship and killed. That was manipulated by the legal mind and the county court judge who tried the case into decision that these men were not in or about any part of their occupation at the time the accident occurred, and the county court judge, with his brilliant legal acumen, in giving that interpretation, likened it unto putting
the cork into a bottle and taking it out of the bottle, which he said was no part of the process of filling or emptying the bottle. How could a man fill a bottle or empty it without taking out the cork? These are only some of the samples of legal decisions which have been given. The hon. Member for the Springburn Division (Mr. Macquisten) said that security was better than compensation. The hon. Member as a lawyer will remember that in 1905 the Home Office set up a public inquiry into the cause and prevention of dock accidents, and it lasted seven months. Amongst other places we visited Glasgow, and there we found the hon. Member for Springburn was one of the most vigorous opponents of a Measure of that kind being passed, and at that time he was not a Member of this House.
There is another question to which I would like to call attention, that is, light employment. I want to give another example of how this works out. Only on Monday last one of our chaps came to me. He had been practically maimed for life. He incurred injury to the spine. He is able to do very little indeed, and, being rather illiterate, could not take a writing job. Indeed, the strain of sitting down in one position was too much for him. The employer offered him light work which the man tried, but was unable to carry it on. His compensation was reduced by the county court judge to 1d. per week in view of the fact that he had secured light work. He has now neither the light work nor the compensation. Both have gone. Another point is in connection with the question of giving notice of the accident to the employer within a certain period. This notice has to be given by the injured work-man, and if he does not give it within six weeks his claim for compensation is prejudiced, and the county court judge in cases has absolutely ruled him out of court. I do not want to harrow hon. Members with details of my own case. I have before told the House what occurred to me nearly 40 years ago. But I know men who have not been able to give notice within the six weeks, and whose relatives were ignorant of the fact that notice had to be given. That has actually happened, and it has been used to oppose the claim to compensation. As to the question of malingering, the insurance company, to whom the employer hands over his liability at so much per
head, will take good care that the man does not malinger. From the date of the accident until he is forced back to work again by repeated special surgical examinations, they sit on his doorstep trying to persuade him to accept loss than he is entitled to. There, is no fear of malingering. There is no humanity about an insurance company, whatever there may be about employers. The fact is that the employer hands over his liability for compensation to a company which is making a dividend out of the misfortunes of the men. These are points which I commend to the right hon. Gentleman's notice, and I hope he will deal with them when he is answering, as I am sure he will, in a sympathetic spirit.

Mr. HOPKINSON: I should like to take up one or two points by the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Shaw). It is not often I am in agreement with him and his colleagues, but on this occasion, in the main, I am entirely in agreement. I only disagree on one or two matters of detail. The hon. Member made a moving appeal to employers in this House, and in the country to show some generosity in this matter. I disagree slightly with that. I do not think that the extra burden that is to be laid upon us as employers in order to give extra benefits can really be described as anything serious. I do not think we shall have to exercise, anything so noble as generosity in paying up that little extra premium which we may be called upon to pay. I understand that the insurance companies concerned in this branch of the business have shown some real generosity, and have accepted the principle of taking reduced profits as compared with those they previously received. I admit that in many cases insurance companies which deal with employers' liability insurance have made very large, profits in the past. I know that from personal experience. But as the whole object of these insurance companies is to make profit, one cannot say that they are acting unjustly because those profits happen in the past to have been high. At any rate, they have now accepted the principle of reduced profits and the generosity for which the hon. Member opposite appealed is really being shown not so much by the employers as by the insurance companies. The hon. Member hinted that insurance companies
put very great difficulty in the way of men getting compensation when they had been insured with them. I may say that my experience, and the experience of other employers to whom I have spoken on the matter is quite opposed to that suggestion. We never had the faintest difficulty with the insurance companies in that regard.

Mr. T. SHAW: May I say I do not remember making such a statement, or even hinting at such a thing in the course of my remarks?

Mr. HOPKINSON: I am mistaken. I am reminded it was the hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Sexton) who threw out that suggestion. I do not think he is right, for, as I have said, in our experience we have found that the companies have been very reasonable in meeting the claims upon them. After all, it is very much the same with fire insurance. If one has a fire in one's house, the insurance company almost tumbles over itself to pay up, because it looks upon every claim paid as a good advertisement and a source of increased premiums for the future. There was another point mentioned by the hon. Member for Preston. He said that to assess the value of a man's life at £300 is an extremely cynical proceeding. Suppose you assess the life at £1,000. To my mind that would be just as cynical. It is not the actual figure you place upon the life as valuation that is cynical. What is cynical is to attempt to reduce human life to a money valuation. The point of the matter is that one has to fix some nominal conventional figure in order to express the relative loss to a man's family between loss of limb and loss of life. Therefore, I do not think it is right to speak of cynicism in this matter, when it is merely a conventional figure which has to be fixed in any ease.
Those, however, are minor points. The real point on which I disagree with hon. Members opposite is that they keep suggesting that the State should interfere in this matter, or that the burden should be put upon the industry rather than upon the individual employer. If they consider the matter carefully, I think they will agree with me that you cannot put a burden on an industry. It is the individuals in that industry who have to put their hands in their pockets and withdraw the money to meet that burden.
An industry is in just the same position as the State. It is not a thing that can bear a burden; it is not a thing that can pay money. It is individuals always who have to pay money in these cases. I hold very strongly, as an individualist and as an employer of labour, that the whole of this burden should be taken up by us as individuals; that, if we, employ a number of men, it is our very first duty to see that those men are insured against privation due to injury received while they are working for us. If you say that an industry as a whole must insure its own men, en bloc, against death from accidents, or against minor accidents, you at once introduce the extremely vicious principle that the man who is endeavouring, either by working shorter hours or by instructing his foremen and managers not to press too hard for output, or by working day work in preference to piece work—the man who in these ways makes the risk of injury and accident in his works very much less —is, under a system of insurance by industry, going to pay for the man who is utterly regardless of his workers.

Colonel P. WILLIAMS: Nobody suggests that there should be a flat rate. The rate to the employer would be based on his experience. Under a Government scheme it is perfectly possible to rate a man on his two or three years' average, in the same way as is done here, and a careful employer would get a lower rate than a careless one.

Mr. HOPKINSON: Taking the case of a small works, like, for instance, my own, where there are only about 100 men employed, the three years' average gives a totally false basis. There was one unfortunate fatal accident in connection with a process in a coal pit, which I will not mention because I am personally interested in it; but there had not been a fatal accident in connection with that process for eight years. Except in very large industries or very large units, where there are hundreds or thousands of men employed, it would not answer For one employer to take a three years' average is a most unsound procedure in a matter of this sort. The one and only solid and sound basis is to make the employer who employs the men responsible for them, and no employer of labour can allege that that puts too hard a burden upon him. The premiums for
insurance against injury to workmen, both minor and fatal injuries, are so comparatively small as compared with the output of the men themselves, that it is perfectly ludicrous to try to dodge that liability in any way or to spread it over the whole industry. In just the same way, if you introduce any system of State insurance in this matter, you are relieving the man who really ought to pay, and I say, as an employer, that it is no business whatsoever of the taxpayer to contribute to this. If you say that by law the employer is responsible for the whole damage, and even if the employer wishes himself to pay for the whole damage, a very considerable portion of the burden is going to come upon the community, whether you wish it to or not. All these things are bound to spread themselves over the whole, community, no matter what you do. You may say that in calling upon people to pay some tax or rate you are taking the money for some social service, but actually that amount is spread over the whole of the producers of this country; and it is the same in all these State insurance schemes. Whatever dodges are proposed to relieve the people who really ought to pay, and by whatever dodge the taxpayer, of all persons in the world, is dragged in, it is a gross injustice that any taxpayer outside my industry or my employment should be expected to contribute to the insurance premiums which I pay to save my men from privation in cases of accident, and I do hope that hon. Members opposite will endeavour, if they can, to agree with me in this, as I have gone so far in agreement with them tonight, that it is we employers who must pay for this risk, and any system by which we do not do so is based upon a totally unsound principle.

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Shortt): I think everyone will agree that this has been a distinctly interesting Debate and has thrashed out the whole subject in a way which is most helpful to those who are concerned. I should like to express, and I am sure I am voicing the feeling of the whole House, our gratitude and thanks to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Holman Gregory) and his Committee for the Report they have given us. It is, in my judgment, one of the most
valuable and instructive Reports that any Departmental Committee has ever presented, and I believe it has done a very great deal to make this subject thoroughly understood, and if only more people would read and study it there would be less trouble in the way of those who want to make some change in our present system. One thing is perfectly clear and that is the complete agreement that something must be done. It is very interesting to observe that four hon. Members who have spoken, connected I know in a large way with Labour, my hon. Friends the Member for North Cornwall (Sir G. Croydon Marks), the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Colonel P. Williams), the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Carr) and the hon. Member who has just spoken have supported some change and some improvement as whole heartedly as any hon. Member opposite, and it is clear that something will have to be done. The War Additions Act, which came to the rescue of men who are in receipt of compensation for injury during the period when prices had risen and the ordinary compensation for wholly inadequate, came to an end this year. I do not believe a single hon. Member, no matter where he may sit, would suggest that we should allow the War Additions Act to lapse and put nothing in its place. We are faced therefore with this position. Either we must do something this Session or we must include the War Additions Act in the Expiring Laws Continuance Act at the end of the Session.
It would be very unsatisfactory to allow this Session to go by with nothing done, and for that reason I hope the House will accept the Motion. I hope it will be clearly understood that I am not in any way accepting or pledging the Government to any detail of reform that has been put forward. There are certain things on which we are all agreed and one is that the old maximum of £1 and the maximum of £300 in the case of fatal accidents are inadequate, but while we are all agreed that they are inadequate, there is by no means a unanimity of opinion as to what they ought to be converted into and what the sums should be. Equally with regard to matters of compulsory insurance and State insurance. Compulsory insurance was strongly recommended by my hon. and learned Friend's Committee. Un-
doubtedly, there is a great deal to be said for it. There is also a great deal to be said for State insurance in a matter of this kind, but it is perfectly clear from the Debate to-night that there is no unanimity of opinion upon it. Therefore it would be idle for me to attempt to suggest to the House to-night what line the Government would take on either of those two points. We are, however, agreed upon general principles, and we are agreed upon this, that the main things that we ought to aim at are, first of all, the prevention of injury altogether, and, secondly, the best possible means for recovering the worker and bringing him back for the use of the State and the use of the industry. These are the two main principles that we must have before us. I believe that the average employer in this country really does appreciate these two main principles, but the difficulty is to agree upon the best method of carrying them out.
There are many points in the Report of my hon. and learned Friend's Committee which are very highly controversial, and it may be very difficult for the Government, when they are introducing a Bill, as I hope we shall be able to do, to deal with these highly controversial points. When, therefore, I say that in drafting a Bill I shall always have before me the recommendations of that Report, I must not be taken as pledging myself in any way to bring in a Measure which deals with every recommendation they make. This is a great national question, and I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall that this is no party question. The best method of proceeding is to endeavour to get agreement between all the parties concerned. By agreement between the parties concerned we can do more to bring in effective legislation than we can by having what would develop into a real party strife on the Floor of the House.
I have already approached men who represent the employed, and men who represent the employers. I am hoping that when they have considered, each of them, their own proposals, and I have myself put forward certain general proposals as a sort of basis for discussion, that we shall be able to get a committee, consisting of representatives of the workmen and representatives of the employers,
and that we shall be able to thresh out a certain measure of agreement which will, at any rate, give us the basis of a measure which will be introduced into this House. It may very well be, and it probably will be, that there will not be agreement upon all points. I can well understand that it will be very difficult, indeed, to get an absolute agreement upon a question which involves the fixing of a definite sum of money. It may be very difficult, indeed, to agree upon the best method of calculating what is a fair payment for the injured workman, or what is a fair payment with regard to the child of the man who has suffered fatal injury. These are matters of very considerable difficulty, but, at least, discussion round the table can do no possible harm, but may lead to very great assistance in regard to this important matter.
Now with regard to the other points, such as the protection of those who are employed by employers financially weak. I agree with one of my hon. Friends who said that it is not the case that so many cases occur where the employer is financially weak, where a man gets no compensation or where an employer goes bankrupt. Those cases are recorded and they are not many. But anyone who has practised in workmen's compensation cases knows that there are many cases all over the country where a wholly inadequate sum is accepted in settlement because, if not, nothing at all would be received. Some method must be proposed to meet a difficulty of that sort. Whether we shall be able to come to such a measure of agreement in our discussions with regard to our proposed legislation for this Session I do not know, but at least we can try. Therefore I hope sincerely that within a very short period we shall have a round table conference which would enable the Government to bring before the House a Bill which, even if not agreed in all its provisions, and I am sure that it will not be, and which may not be accepted by those who are outside the conference, will at least have a very large measure of support in this House, and may, with the assistance of Debates in this House, be made a really effective and good Act of Parliament. That is the position which the Government take up to-night.
I am sure that the House would not ask me to pledge myself as to any of the various details which have been men-
tioned in the course of the Debate. They are extremely interesting and instructive, but, having regard to the position which we have taken, I do not think that it would be proper for me to give a Government opinion and then to ask both sides, employers and employed, to come and discuss the matter in a conference. I think that the proper thing for us to do is to keep silence upon those matters until we know what measure of agreement between those chiefly concerned can be reached at the conference. There are many points which have been raised in the course of the Debate which are of very great interest, into which I should like in many cases to have entered, but I think that it probably would not be the wish of the House that I should do so now. I know that, there are many shortcomings in the Act as it exists. I have heard heartrending cases of legal inefficiency described by my hon. Friends opposite, but I must say that I should like to hear the explanation of the County Court judge before accepting those cases entirely as they have been stated. Equally there are many cases which are very grave to the employer.
We want to remove these cases, and the best way to remove them is to get both parties together and to thrash out the best method. We are all agreed that something must be done. We are all agreed that this is not a party but is a national question, and in spite of the strictures of my hon. Friend we are all agreed that it should be a charge upon the industry of the country. The industry, of course, means the people engaged in the industry, with this addition, that the State has not got any person to whom it can pass on this burden of compensation. It is paid by the individuals who constitute the State. They have got to bear the burden themselves, and cannot even make the purchaser pay. We are agreed upon general principles, and therefore I hope, with the assistance of hon. Friends who have kindly promised to assist me, and with the assistance of employers, we may thrash out a Bill which we can bring to this House with a promise of a fair measure of agreement, and that we shall, before this Session has passed, have passed a Measure which will put the whole subject of workmen's compensation upon a much more satisfactory basis.

Mr. CHARLES EDWARDS: I am very glad to know that the speeches to-night have been sympathetic to the proposal put before the House. The Home Secretary has been talking about sitting around a table and getting an agreed Measure. I thought that had been done over two years ago. Our representatives who sat upon the Committee signed the findings of that Committee with the idea that a Bill was to be brought in immediately to give effect to them. There were some things in the findings that we did not like at all. One thing especially was that a man who was on compensation at the time was not to benefit by the new Bill or by the recommendations of the Committee. Notwithstanding that, for the sake of agreement our representatives signed the recommendations, To-night we are again talking about agreement. I do not know whether the proposal is to get the same Committee together again and to go over the business once more. We were hoping that the Home Secretary would tell us that he was bringing in a Bill to give effect to the findings. My hon Friend the Member for Preston (Mr. T. Shaw) made a statement as to what the cost would be, but he was far too high in his estimate. He was speaking of the coal industry. I suppose he had in mind full wages for an injured workman. Why in the world an injured workman should not receive full wages when at home I do not know. But that is not the finding of the Holman Gregory Report. The payment up to now for that industry is something less than 2½d. per ton, and it is estimated that if the full findings of the Holman Gregory Report were given effect to the cost would be less than 3d. per ton. It would be a cost upon the industry, and, as far as South Wales is concerned, the workman would pay no less than 83 per cent, towards the fund, and the employers only 17 per cent. From the employers' standpoint, therefore, it is not a very serious matter.
Many deputations have waited on the Home Secretary, sometimes from the whole of the trade unions and sometimes from sections of them. For the last two years we have put down resolution after resolution, and yet we find ourselves in exactly the same position to-day. The widows are left as they were before, with £300 only, and the judges make that pay-
ment of £300 go as far as possible. The highest amount I have known a judge to give, no matter how many children are left, has been about 25s. a week. These widows would have been far better off if there had been no £300 and they had applied to the guardians, for they would have received much better treatment. I have been wondering during the last few months whether we had a Compensation Act in force or not. After March, 1921, thousands of our light employment men were deprived of the work they were doing and no compensation was paid to them, because up to that time their earnings had been over and above what they were when the men worked in their normal occupation, at 'least in the case of those who were injured before the War began. So they received no compensation. The judge decided that it was owing to the state of the labour market that these men were idle and he refused to give compensation to the extent of the injury that they received.
We thought that was wrong; the employers thought it was wrong and they came to the decision that half the difference between the assumed earnings of the light employment men, and what they were actually receiving at the time of the injury should be paid. An agreement was arrived at, that a few shillings a week should be paid to some of these men, but the judge decided entirely against that, because of the labour market. What the labour market has to do with injury I do not know, but that was the position taken up. We contend if there is any legislation in need of overhauling, it is that in relation to workmen's compensation. We hope that in the very near future, a Bill will be introduced giving effect to the findings already agreed upon, apart from any new findings that may be come to. We feel that such a Measure is long overdue. We have pressed for it time after time, and I hope we are nearer to it to-day than we have been previously. My wish is that the Home Secretary should immediately bring in such a Bill.

Lieut.-Colonel NALL: I am sure the House is glad to have heard the declaration made by the Home Secretary on this matter. It would be most unfortunate if the present Session, which so many people regard as the last Session of this
Parliament, were allowed to pass without placing on the Statute Book some permanent Amendment of the Compensation Acts. I hope, as I am sure many hon. Members do, that when the Government produce their Bill on this question, they will not attempt to set up any kind of State insurance in connection with it. I know there are people outside this House who say that the compensation question should be linked up, if not amalgamated with, the National Health Insurance scheme.
For my part, I take this opportunity of expressing the hope in connection with compensation that the interference of that extravagant, futile busy-body the State, will not be admitted; that this question will be adjusted on its merits and that in due course we shall get an Act, which, whilst keeping the charge as it is to-day, a charge upon the industry concerned, will meet those legitimate grievances or necessities for redress which exist at the present time. I hope we shall not allow this question to be used as one more instrument for enforcing the interference of the State, hut that we shall get a Measure, removing this question from any possibility of being involved in party controversy, and that before we rise for the Summer Recess this matter will have been suitably adjusted in accordance with the outlines given by the Home Secretary to-night.

Mr. WIGNALL: We are all pleased that the Home Secretary has made the statement he made to-night, and we are looking forward to the possibility of a joint conference at which these important matters can be discussed. I wish to point out some of the matters which must come under review in connection with any new Measure to be brought before the House. First, some steps must be taken to reduce the cost of litigation. Why it should be necessary to call a long list of medical men to prove whether a man is a malingerer or not, passes my comprehension. In scores, if not hundreds, of cases, in which I have been concerned, three specialists have been called to prove a man a malingerer, and three others to prove the contrary, all at a very high cost. One contradicts the other, and the need for calling them is not apparent to me. Something ought to be done by which some easier and simpler method
of ascertaining the exact position could be arrived at. I know there are the assessors, and I know there are means adopted to-day which do not quite remove our cause of complaint.
The second point we have to consider is in regard to compulsory insurance. I am agreed with compulsory insurance, and I have only been responsible for a few strikes in my life, in refusing to allow men to work for men with rotten gear and no money with which to pay compensation, and who would not insure, and I have indeed many and many a time agreed with men refusing to work for that kind of employer. Something ought to be done when the insurance is effected to prevent agents going to men in distress and inducing thorn—compelling them almost—to accept miserable sums in settlement. If we had time, I could give many such cases, but they are so numerous that we are all familiar with the evil. The third point I wish to make is one that has not been mentioned to-night. In the existing Act there was one of the wisest provisions introduced that has ever been conceived in connection with insurance against injuries, and that is the section dealing with industrial diseases. That has been a beneficent section, and has done an immense amount of good, not only in the prevention of diseases, but in having compelled many employers to resort to methods of improvement in their workshops. I hope that in any fresh legislation on this subject it will be made easier for industries to be included under that section. At the present time you have to prove your case and get your industry scheduled, and to my knowledge many and many an industry which I know is injurious to health has failed to get included in the Schedule under the Act. Consequently men are suffering in health to-day. I will go so far as to say that all industries ought to be included under that Clause and be required to prove afterwards that they are not dangerous to health. That would be the simpler and easier way. I am drawing attention to these three points in regard to which hardships arise, and I am sure that with generous treatment, and the continuance of the kindly good feeling that has been expressed on every hand here to-night, these things will be improved upon and
will be greatly beneficial to the industrial community.

Resolved:
That, in view of the unsatisfactory state of the law relating to Workmen's Compensation and of the fact that the War Addition Acts expire at the end of this year, this House is of opinion that a Government Bill to amend the Workmen's Compensation Act. 1906, should be introduced and passed during the course of this Session.

EMPIRE SETTLEMENT [MONEY].

Order for Committee read.

Lieut. - Colonel Sir J. NORTON -GRIFFITHS: On a point of Order. May I ask whether it would not be possible to arrange a more convenient hour for discussing such an important matter as that which we have on the Order Paper to-night?

Mr. SPEAKER: That is not a point of Order.

Considered in Committee.

[Sir F. BANBURY in the Chair.]

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That it is expedient to provide for the payment, out of moneys provided by Parliament, of any expenses of the Secretary of State under any Act of the present Session to make better provision for furthering British settlement in His Majesty's Oversea Dominions, so however that the aggregate amount expended by the Secretary of State under any scheme or schemes under any such Act shall not exceed one million five hundred thousand pounds in the current financial year or three million pounds in any subsequent financial year, exclusive of the amount of any sums received by way of interest on or repayment of advances previously made.

Sir G. COLLINS: I wish to ask the Minister in charge of the Bill whether provision is made for this allowance in the Colonial Office Estimates already presented to Parliament? Is it in a Supplementary Estimate or in the Budget?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: It is in the Budget.

Sir G. COLLINS: I have only risen to ask for information.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: It is in the £25,000,000 which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has provided for con-
tingencies. I am speaking subject to correction, but I think I am right.

Sir G. COLLINS: I rose to ask a question on that point. There is a certain Supplementary Estimate which the Committee will be asked to pass within a few days after the original Estimate. I put this point quite reasonably, and, I hope, quite clearly, to the Leader of the House. Could not it have been foreseen, when the original Colonial Office Estimate was presented to the House of Commons, that the sum of £1,500,000 would be necessary for the purpose of this Vote? I do not rise to take exception in any shape or form to the amount of the sum which the Committee is being asked to vote this evening, but I wish to enter a protest against a further Supplementary Estimate—the second already in the year —after the Secretary of State for War, a very few weeks ago, from the Government Front Bench, informed the House that there would be no Supplementary Estimate this year.

Sir J. NORTON-GRIFFITHS: This matter was brought up in the House the other day, and the House unanimously approved of it.

Sir G. COLLINS: I am not taking any exception to the decision of the House of Commons.

Sir J. NORTON-GRIFFITHS: Then why block its progress?

Sir G. COLLINS: I am only on my feet for a moment. The hon. and gallant Gentleman himself got up a very few moments ago to raise an objection to this Vote being taken this evening. After what he said a few minutes ago, his protest seems rather strange.

Sir J. NORTON-GRIFFITHS: I was under the impression that the main issue was to be taken. I had hoped that we should have had a very full discussion on this point, which is of vital interest to the Empire as a whole. I am sure that my hon. Friend is as much behind this Bill as I am.

Sir G. COLLINS: I have no desire to stop the Government getting this Financial Resolution, which is very important. My only object in rising was to ask a simple question, whether the provision of
£1,500,000, which would be required to operate this Bill, would be in the Estimates of the year. Time and again from these benches we have taken exception to Supplementary Estimates, and we take special exception to Supplementary Estimates being taken within a few days of the Estimates being presented to the House.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: There is an Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. X. Maclean), and also one in the name of the hon. Member for East Leyton (Mr. Malone), which are both out of order for this reason. The hon. Member for Govan proposes to add the words "in the United Kingdom." The Resolution provides for settlement in His Majesty's oversea Dominions, and if we were to add the words "in the United Kingdom," we should have to take another Resolution. Therefore, it is out of order. The hon. Member for East Leyton proposes to insert, after the word "Dominions," the words "or Colonies." I am not quite certain whether Colonies are included in "Dominions." If not, we should again require another Resolution. Therefore, both these Amendments are out of order.

Mr. BIGLAND: I beg to move at the end of the Resolution to add the words:
which sums shall be available for expenditure by the Secretary of State for the purposes of this Act.
This Amendment is rather explanatory than anything in the way of altering the sense of the Resolution. In the Bill itself it is quite clear that, apart from grants made to intending settlers, there shall be loans made to Dominion Governments for the development of land settlement, and where these loans are met out of the £3,000,000 per annum, which, when we get into full work on this Bill, we hope will be expended, after five years may be returnable, and it is a little doubtful in the expression used in the Resolution whether when loans are returned, the Secretary of State can use the amount so returned on repaid loan for the continuance of the work. The hon. Member for the Camlachie Division of Glasgow (Sir H. Mackinder) on the Second Reading of the Bill brought up this issue, and the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies agreed that that returned money from these loans and from the interest on the advances made, should be used again
as recurring money. The amount of actual money suggested in this Resolution is so small that it was hoped that within a few years when the money lent to the Dominion Governments——

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I was not quite aware of the argument which the hon. Member would adduce in favour of his Amendment. It seems to me, now that I have heard his argument, that his Amendment is out of order, because it is unnecessary. The Resolution says:
or three million pound in any subsequent financial year, exclusive of the amount of any sums received by way of interest on or repayment of advances previously made.
Under those words it seems to me that the Secretary of State could use repayments for certain purposes, which, as I understand, is all that the hon. Member desires to do.

Mr. BIGLAND: It is so, but we did not feel it was quite clear in the Resolution, and we were in hopes the Government would accept the elucidation of the phrase, because at some future date it might be ruled that this money that came back from these loans might be claimed by the Treasury as revenue for that year.

11.0 P.M.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: Yes, but there is no use in putting words in that have no meaning, and that are not effective in the Resolution. The Amendment of the hon. Member is out of order because the matter is already provided for in the Resolution.

Mr. BIGLAND: If that is the decision of the House, I am quite satisfied. My only desire was to make it quite clear.

Captain W. BENN: On a point of Order. Is it not for the Committee to consider whether or not the proposed words strengthen the Resolution? If the thing is out of order for other reasons that is quite a different matter. But I submit that if the Committee in its wisdom thinks that words can be added giving force to the Resolution, that is a matter for the Committee.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The question is, will they add force? It seems to me they are redundant. Therefore I rule them out of order.

Mr. N. MACLEAN: You ruled my Amendment out of order; may I ask——

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: We cannot now discuss something that happened a few moments ago.

Mr. MACLEAN: There are certain things being done at a particular time——

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That is not a point of Order.

Mr. CHARLES EDWARDS: May we not have an explanation from the hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill as to these words "Colonies and Dominions"?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: Yes, but that is not a point of Order.

Sir COURTENAY WARNER: I agree with the hon. Gentleman opposite that this is in effect a Supplementary Estimate, and that it is not provided for in the Budget except in the way other Supplementary Estimates are provided for in the £25,000,000. But it might conceivably be that total will come to £55,000,000. I trust there will be few more of these, and that the Government, in the present state of things, will take care that this is so.

Sir J. NORTON-GRIFFITHS: It would clear the atmosphere if my hon. Friend would tell us why it is not possible to include this in the ordinary Estimates, instead of bringing it in now as a Supplementary Estimate?

Mr. MALONE: My Amendment having been ruled out of order, may I ask the hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill to tell the House whether the word "Dominions" includes the "Colonies" as well?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Amery): It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I just answer the points put to me. I think, from the point of view of legal interpretation, the words "His Majesty's Dominions" covers "Dominions" in the narrow sense and also includes the Colonies. From the practical point of view, settlements of the people of this country in other parts of the Empire are mainly people of the Dominions. That will also cover the Protectorates. As regards the point raised by the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bigland), I entirely accept the view laid down by the Chairman that the suggested words are otherwise. The last
sentence of the Resolution was specially inserted by the Treasury to enable the monies returned by the settlers to gain, and for us to get the fullest value in money for the purposes of this Resolution. It is, of course, the case that this Resolution will subsequently involve a Supplementary Estimate, but I would like to point out that the maximum of this Resolution entirely depends upon the Dominion Governments organising a scheme, and there will be no expenditure here unless and until there is expenditure from other sources. This Bill was the outcome of a Resolution passed at the last year's Imperial Conference, and we have had to consider the amount involved and the probability of Dominion cooperation. That is the reason why it was found impossible to include this in the Colonial Office Estimates.

Captain WEDGWOOD BENN: We have just left a Budget discussion in which every hon. Member who has taken part from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Central Glasgow (Mr. Bonar Law) to others less eminent have all pressed for economy. The Chancellor of the Exchequer assured us that he had taken £25,000,000 to cover all Supplementary Estimates, and we have also been assured by the Leader of the House that the sum in this Resolution is included in the calculation presented to the House by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The sum of £25,000,000 has been laid aside for the Supplementary Services for the whole year which the Chancellor of the Exchequer calls ample provision. We have already had a Supplementary Estimate for £4,000,000 for unemployment and £700,000 for Ireland and Russian refugees, and now we have before, us a Supplementary Estimate for £1,500,000, which makes a total of £6,250,000. The Budget was introduced on Monday, and by Wednesday we have reached £6,250,000 out of the £25,000,000 provided in the Budget for Supplementary Estimates for the whole year. With the object of this Bill I am in sympathy so far as the finances of the country will permit, but I think it is our duty to try and keep within the limits laid down, and I wish to direct the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the fact that already over a quarter of the sum provided for this purpose has been hypo-
thecated. It seems to me to be extraordinary that it should have been found impossible to include this sum in the ordinary Estimates. Why not? Foresight can be exercised in connection with these transactions.

Lieut.-Colonel NALL: Surely the hon. and gallant Member is aware that the Government cannot present an Estimate until it is substantiated by Act of Parliament.

Captain W. BENN: I attribute the absence of this item from the Estimates to the extremely sloppy condition to which finance has sunk. During the War Supplementary Estimates were passed without the least difficulty. That state of affairs must come to an end and the Estimates for the year must be adhered to; otherwise we shall spend, not £25,000,000 extra, but £90,000,000, and the whole Budget forecast will be falsified.

Sir J. NORTON-GRIFFITHS: The reason I intervened earlier was that when this was first mentioned some days ago I desired to move an Amendment to insert "three millions" for "one and a half millions,' and "six millions" for "three millions," for the simple reason that the amount we are asked for is quite inadequate to deal with a question which has so far received the unanimous support of the House.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I informed the hon. and gallant Member that it would be out of order to propose to increase the sum.

Sir J. NORTON-GRIFFITHS: I wanted to draw attention to the fact that I understand that the only way of securing my end is to move a reduction, which I shall do if I have an opportunity. I wish to add this with reference to the remarks of the previous speaker (Captain Benn). It is not a question of extravagance in this case. It is a question of procedure and of the methods of obtaining sanction to the expenditure. It is a pity, I admit, that the sum was not provided for outside the £250,000,000 contingency allowance. But, however, that is gone by, and I hope we shall not have further delay in getting on with this Vote, and get the sanction of the Committee to it, so that progress may be made with the Bill. We all admit it is of urgent importance that we should not lose a minute in achieving
what we are aiming at—to try and help in every possible way the scheme which the hon. and gallant Gentleman has introduced into this House.

Mr. MARRIOTT: I do not think that the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Leith (Captain W. Benn) should be allowed to pass; without comment. With his general sentiment with regard to procedure, I am in entire agreement as to the inclusion of the sum in the Estimates for the year and the prevention of the presentation of Supplementary Estimates; but, when the hon. Member suggests that this Measure is in contravention of the rule for general economy, I join issue with him at once. I am supporting this; Measure on the ground that it is the highest and best economy from the point of view even of expenditure. This Measure has been commended to the House partly on the ground that it is going to save a considerable sum in the relief of unemployment at home. It was not commended to the House finally on that ground, but it is an element that it is a contribution to the relief of unemployment at home. This Measure, I think, should be accepted by the House, and I desire to give it my very hearty support from the point of view of a zealous economist.

Mr. NEIL MACLEAN: I intervene in this Debate because of a remark made by the hon. and gallant Member for Central Wandsworth (Sir J. Norton-Griffiths) to the effect that this proposal seemed to have the unanimous support of the House. So far as I am concerned I do not support it, and I put down an Amendment, which, however, was ruled out of order, because it would have altered the entire scope of the Financial Resolution. I put it down because I have put down similar Amendments to the Bill itself. I have no desire to see the brawn and muscle of this country go out of this country to other parts of the world while there is sufficient land in this country upon which those people could be settled.

Sir J. NORTON-GRIFFITHS: Nonsense.

Mr. MACLEAN: There is no nonsense about it. I am speaking of a part of the country which may be familiar to some hon. Members who go North, not to work, but to shoot.

Sir J. NORTON-GRIFFITHS: There are some of your best countrymen in the Dominions.

Mr. MACLEAN: I know there are, but this country might have been better, though it would have been worse for the Dominions, had they been able, through a similar scheme of settlement on the land of this country, to devote their good ability to the development of the land at home. There is sufficient land in this country still waiting to be developed, and I have yet to learn that this Government showed the same desire to settle men on the land at home that they are evincing to place them in the Colonies. It is interesting, when we look at the figures in connection with the settlement of ex-soldiers on the land at home, to find that the amount spent on placing them on the land at home is so much less than is going to be spent in placing in the Colonies unemployed workers and ex-service men from this country, and it is from that point of view that I object entirely to the scope of this Bill. The argument of the hon. and gallant Member for Leith (Captain W. Benn) against it was that it was practically a Supplementary Estimate—it meant spending money without bringing it before the House. The hon. and gallant Member spoke from the point of view of economy. I do not oppose it from that point of view. If this money can be spent usefully I have no objection to its being spent, but with this proviso, that I want it spent at home in first developing our own country, which is waiting to be developed. Hon. Members will remember that with their papers a few mornings ago they received a bulky report of 100 pages or so on the deer forests of Scotland, showing their extension. The hon. and gallant Member for East Woolwich (Captain Gee) probably knows nothing about deer forests——

Captain GEE: T do. I know as much as you do, from the ex-service man's point of view. I have been a soldier, and you have not.

Mr. MACLEAN: I know the hon. and gallant Member has been a soldier, while I have not——

Mr. ROBERTSON: The hon. and gallant Member is not the only soldier.

Captain GEE: No, but I went, and you stayed at home.

The CHAIRMAN (Mr. James Hope): I must deprecate these interruptions.

Mr. MACLEAN: What the hon. and gallant Member says may be true, but at least I have the confidence of the ex-service men in Scotland, which is more than he would have if he went to Scotland.

Captain GEE: Query!

Mr. MACLEAN: They never shouted me down in Scotland.

Captain GEE: They never shouted me down either.

The CHAIRMAN: I must ask the hon. and gallant Member not to interrupt.

Mr. ROBERTSON: On a point of Order. Is it right that the hon. and gallant Gentleman should draw attention to the fact that people stayed at home?

Mr. MACLEAN: My point of view is that many of the ex-service men in this country have a desire to go on to the land of the country which they saved from the Germans. I want to see it become theirs, and if the House of Commons can vote money to pay the passages of these men to places thousands of miles away, and place them on the land there, I see no reason why similar sums, if not this sum which is being voted to-night, cannot be spent upon placing ex-service men on the land of the country for which they have fought.

Mr. STANTON: They ought to be there, instead of some of you.

Mr. MACLEAN: You also stayed at homo, and also come under the strictures of the hon. and gallant Gentleman.

Mr. STANTON: I stayed at home to beat some of you people here.

Mr. MACLEAN: You did not come up against Scottish men anyhow.

The CHAIRMAN: These interruptions, and hon. Members addressing one another, are quite out of order.

Mr. STANTON: Are the Labour party specially privileged to insult other Members of the House without any reply? I will not have it. Hang the rules!

The CHAIRMAN: No one is privileged to insult another hon. Member.

Mr. MACLEAN: If I am insulting any hon. Member——

Mr. STANTON: You will get it back if you insult me.

Mr. MACLEAN: I am willing to take it back from you or any other man in the House.

Mr. STANTON: You will get it too.

Mr. MACLEAN: You can take it any time you like, you hooligan.

Mr. STANTON: Will you give me a chance, Sir, to demonstrate that I am not a hooligan?

The CHAIRMAN: That was an improper expression. I must ask the hon. Member to withdraw it.

Mr. MACLEAN: I will do so in deference to the Chair. At the same time, this is not the first time we on these Benches have had to stand the same thing from the same quarter. It is getting beyond the bearing point, and I, for one, am not going to take from anyone, outside the Chamber, at any rate, what is said to us inside. I let it go at that.

Mr. STANTON: You can have it where you like.

Mr. MACLEAN: You can have it where you will not like.

The CHAIRMAN: I must ask the hon. Member for Aberdare (Mr. Stanton) not to make these interruptions. They are entirely out of order.

Mr. STANTON: I will endeavour to observe your ruling, only I will not be bullied by that bunch of blackguards.

The CHAIRMAN: I must ask the hon. Member to withdraw that expression.

Mr. STANTON: I withdraw it, Sir.

Mr. MACLEAN: I am not going to invite any further interruptions. I am merely once again going to insist on the point of view that I take that this money, or an equivalent sum, ought to be voted in order to place men on the land in this country rather than treat them in the parsimonious manner the Government is treating land settlement, and I shall move Amendments to the Bill with a view to getting the views that I and others hold put into operation.

Mr. LYLE-SAMUEL: I do not rise to take part in the controversy, but looking at the two hon. Members, the best advice that could be given them would be to keep their hair on. When I was a teller against the Motion to exempt this business from the 11 o'clock Rule it was not because I was opposed to the scheme, but because I so strongly support the Government, not merely in this step, but in the policy which I believe they hold, which may result, I trust, in many steps forward along these lines. I do not know that any Government seriously concerned with unemployment in this country, who properly appreciate the new relationship that exists between ourselves and our Dominions, could more fruitfully occupy the real business and wakeful hours of this Assembly than by putting down for discussion within those hours such business as this. This is first-class business. This is high-class business. This is urgent business, and it is put down after 11 o'clock at night.
I am not at all interested in going into technical points or as to the value of land here and the putting of people on the land here. We will deal with those matters under other heads and arising from other subjects. The question is not one of putting the unemployed from our industrial areas into our rural districts. I know, speaking as the representative of an agricultural constituency, that the question is how to keep our agricultural workers employed where they are. Agricultural employment to-day is a very serious matter, and it is trifling with this Committee to suggest that unemployment in this land—of which we are all so proud, and which every man in his own way did his best in the great War to protect—can be solved by putting more men upon the land here. It is a waste of words and a waste of time. It is also absurd to suggest that there is a solution for our unemployment problem at home by sending largo numbers of men from this country to the Overseas Dominions; but it is not absurd and it is not unworthy, on the contrary it is wise and statesmanlike for the Government to ask the House to grant some small sum, and a larger sum if need be, to give men in this country, whose our look is dark, and who think it will be brighter abroad, opportunities to take advantage of the new sphere that is opening in our Dominions. I rose not to engage in con-
troversy, but to say that the reason why I was a teller against the Government in the Motion to suspend the Eleven o'Clock Rule was because I support the Government so much on this question I would rather have more time given for its discussion in the wakeful hours of business.

Mr. AMERY: I will deal with one point raised by the hon. Member opposite. This Measure is urgent because of our negotiations with the Oversea Governments, and also because certain very distinguished representatives of Oversea Governments are over here for a short time, and it is very desirable to get the Bill passed to enable us to got a practical discussion with them. In view of that, and in view of the fact that the Bill was fully discussed on Second Reading, when we elucidated the whole matter, I do ask the Committee to pass this Resolution so that we may get the Bill into Committee, and have it back for Report and Third Reading. It is not too much to risk the Committee to agree to this formal stage after 11 o'clock, and I hope they will agree to it now.

Captain Viscount CURZON: As an ex-service man, I wish to say a few words arising out of the remarks made from the Labour benches. Does not the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. N. Maclean) realise that this Bill opens up the one chance in the world, perhaps, for some of our ex-service men, who do not know what they are going to do to got a job in this country? He knows that they are walking the streets without hope until this Bill passes.

Mr. MACLEAN: They are doing that in the Colonies now.

Viscount CURZON: The hon. Member knows that the Dominions are going to assist these men to develop new areas there. It is all very well to speak about developing the Scottish doer forests, but the hon. Member knows that that is not a practicable proposition.

Mr. MACLEAN: One-third of the area of the deer forests of Scotland is good cultivable land. It was cultivated formerly.

The CHAIRMAN: A historical controversy as to the deer forests cannot possibly be in order.

Viscount CURZON: If I had my choice between land in a deer forest in Scot-
land and a good area of land in Canada or Australia I would choose the land in Canada or Australia. This project opens up one chance in a hundred to ex-service men. I would appeal to the hon. Gentleman to consider the feelings of the ex-service men and not to do anything to interfere with the realisation of their hopes in this matter.

Mr. ROBERTSON: I do not rise to speak as an ex-service man, but I am the father of four ex-service men, and the probability is that if a demonstration of courage was needed I should not be a bit behind my sons. But we are not discussing the courage of any individuals. What we are discussing is the question of settlement on the land. I have seen a deer forest, though I have not shot over one, owned one or leased one. The point at this moment is this. By all means give the men a chance in the Colonies if they want to have a chance. Compel no man to remain in the Highlands if he wants to leave them. But if there are ex-service men who want to remain in the Highlands, then do not force them out of the Highlands because of the niggardly action of the Government to suit an agitation for cheap labour in the Colonies. Some of us know what is going on in the Colonies. I join my voice in the protest of the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. N. Maclean) against the statement that the Highlands are all bogs and rogs. [Interruption.] I do not like speaking against noise. It is like speaking against a Salvation Army drum. These noises are bad manners. There are men who can make a living in the Highlands and want to do so. I believe that they do not get a chance in the Highlands because we are an industrial country, and money made in industry is spent in keeping the Highlands of Scotland as a sporting ground. I was sorry to hear a Scotsman say that the Highlands of Scotland can not be cultivated. He is talking nonsense. He is not acquainted with the agricultural possibilities of his own country. I hope that the men who want to remain in the Highlands will get a chance to remain there, and not be driven out of the country because the Government will not make the same provision for them as they make for those who go overseas.

Mr. RICHARDSON: Already many of our ex-soldiers are in the Dominions, and I have had two or three letters from men who have gone there asking more help to assist them on the land. Will these men who are already there be permitted to benefit under this legislation?

Mr. AMERY: I hope that the schemes agreed on by the overseas Governments will enable men who have gone out already to benefit.

Mr. ROBERTSON: Will the hon. Gentleman ask that that shall be done?

Mr. AMERY: I hope so.

Captain GEE: This is such a serious problem that I would not like the Debate to close on the level it has reached. It is an Imperial problem. I shall not deal with the question from the ex-service man's point of view alone, because there are industrial workers in this country who also are eager to emigrate to the Colonies. One or two fallacies have been raised by hon. Members opposite. We have been asked to co-operate in this scheme by the Governments of the Dominions overseas. In one case the request comes from a Labour Government. For the first time in the history of the Empire emigration is to be dealt with on a scientific basis. We are willing to co-operate with the Dominions, but the same old parrot cry has been raised about driving the ex-service men from the land for which they fought. Two classes of men are affected—ex-service men and industrial workers. Each class is vital to the life of the Empire and each class can take part in this emigration scheme. We ought to do everything we can to bring about a redistribution of the population within the Empire. I appeal to Members of the House. So far there has been no Division on the Bill. We all love our country and our Empire, and I ask that this Resolution be allowed to go through without a Division.

Mr. STANTON: I want to say how much I find myself in agreement with the purpose of the Resolution and how much I find myself in disagreement with the sentiments expressed in one quarter of the House. This is one of the most vital and important questions that have arisen in this House since I have known anything of Parliament's history. It
marks only a beginning, of course. We are beginning late, but not too late to do some good. The broad fact is that this scheme means employment overseas for the men who in this country are unable to get work. That will be for their benefit and for the good of the Dominions overseas. Our Dominions have proved an asset which cannot be decried. It is all very well for certain people to declare that there are strikes and unemployment in the Dominions. There may be, but these only exist for the same reason as that to which labour troubles in this country are due. We all know what those reasons are.
We have no desire to rush the boys who fought during the War out to these other parts of the world, but I am wondering why we have not had volunteers from among those who are so dissatisfied with this wretched old country of ours and who, during the War discovered nothing in it worth fighting for—those who learned nothing from the War. We have had no volunteers from among them, but we have discovered that it is necessary that we should provide a means of assisting those who would care for the change. We are driving no one; we are merely showing our desire to help those who are willing to help themselves. "As per usual" it is those who fought, for the good old country, and made the greatest sacrifices, who will probably be called on now to forsake the country and leave it to the shirkers, but they are having the chance of going to another country where there is plenty of elbow room and where they will have the assistance of the Dominion Government as well as of the homo Government. This, as I have said, is only a beginning, and I am only sorry this Resolution is not for three, four or six times the amount.
If this country is becoming so wretched, owing to labour agitation, syndicalists, quasi-Bolshevists, and all the other lot, there should be a fair opportunity provided for those who wish to go to other parts of British Empire, where there is a chance of leading a new life, a clean life, and playing the part of a Britisher. People who are unable to obtain employment here—sometimes through the tyranny of the trade unions—should get this chance. Those who sit on the opposite Benches pretend to be sympathetic with such people and sneer at
this being a country fit for heroes to live in. They have not helped to make it a country fit even for devils to live in. Those unable to obtain employment should have a chance of going to other parts of the British Empire—where there are Labour Governments—and where they will be away from the temptations which beset them in this country—in which, it appears, the Bolshevist reigns supreme.

Mrs. WINTRINGHAM: On behalf of the women workers of the country, I welcome this Bill. As a result of the War, a great many women have been thrown out of employment, and if this Bill is successful it will deal to a very considerable extent with the present surplus of 2,000,000 women. There are ex-service women, munition workers and domestic servants, among whom great unemployment exists. During the War, through the different War agricultural agencies, women had an opportunity of entering into agricultural work. Immediately after the War, they had the opportunity offered them of going overseas, but a great many did not accept. This new Bill gives a further opportunity, and I think many of them will be pleased to take advantage of it. In England they had schemes for learning the smaller branches of agriculture—poultry keeping and that kind of thing, and also some dairy work—and that will prove most beneficial. I welcome the Bill particularly on behalf of the ex-service women, so many of whom are at present out of employment.

Mr. RAFFAN: I would not have intervened in this Debate had it not been for an hon. Member who suggested that the House had shown that it was unanimously in favour of this Bill by agreeing to the Second Reading. In view of that statement having been made, those of us who view with some doubt the action of the Government on this question had no option but to state clearly what our position is in regard to it. It is obvious that the policy of the Government must be considered not merely with reference to this matter but as a whole, and while I do not object to any well-considered scheme for the purpose of giving opportunities of closer association between the Colonies and ourselves, the Government are here asking for an expenditure for the purpose of sending men overseas larger than their expenditure upon the
settlement of men at home. That is so. It is not merely a matter of the deer forests, although with regard to that I entirely associate myself with what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Govan (Mr. N. Maclean), but what about the promises which were made by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Agriculture? The Prime Minister delivered a speech which is bound to be in the recollection of the hon. Gentleman now in charge of this Bill, in which he declared that there should be no attempt in the future to call upon men who were able to work in agriculture to leave their own land. Every Government scheme for settling men in Great Britain on the soil has either been abandoned, or the policy with regard to it has been changed. The assistance given to the county councils has been so inadequate that the county councils have been obliged to say they will not consider further applications for small holdings, and there is not a single county council in England and Wales that has not on its books large numbers of approved applicants for small holdings, men whose qualifications for settling upon the soil have been tested and approved. The committees have come to the conclusion that they are suitable men to settle on the soil, and yet they cannot be put on the land. Under these circumstances, I say deliberately that it is heartless and cruel to say that there will be no opportunity given for colonising our own country, but that these large sums of money are to be expended for colonisation abroad.
There is this further word to say, and I think it is relevant with regard to what has been said about the ex-service men and with reference to the bogs in the highlands of Scotland. When it was desired that the men in the highlands of Scotland should be called to the Colours to fight for this country you did not talk in this deprecating manner about the land of their birth——

Viscount CURZON: Might I correct a wrong impression which appears to exist in the mind of the hon. Member? I did not mean to assume that all Scotland was composed of bogs or was forest land. What I talked about was the deer forests, which are mainly bogs and rocks.

Mr. RAFFAN: I would ask the Noble-Lord to carry his memory back to the time when an appeal was being made to the Highlanders, drawn from the hills and valleys of Scotland, to fight for this country. No doubt he will remember a recruiting poster, a copy of which was posted up in Whitehall, depicting a Highlander at the hour of sunset standing at the bottom of a Highland glen. Below was the legend, "Is not this a land worth fighting for?" Was not the land worth fighting for? Now, these men having been induced to endure the hell of war——

Sir J. NORTON-GRIFFITHS: May I interrupt the hon. Gentleman for a moment? Did not some of the bravest of the Scottish race come from, the Dominions overseas to defend our shores just as much as the bravest here, and the bravest in the world, came to fight? There is no difference between the Hielander in Scotland and the Hielander in the British Dominions.

Mr. RAFFAN: My hon. and gallant Friend, who is possessed of much greater eloquence than I, is emphasising the argument I am endeavouring to address to the House. I am perfectly prepared to see any reasonable arrangements made to carry out the task which the hon. Gentleman has laid before the House, but I do say that there should be some sense of proportion in the Government's policy. I deprecate the policy which the hon. Gentleman has proposed to the House. It is a mere policy of despair to say that there should be opportunities of settling men thousands of miles overseas when these men in the Highlands, to whom the recruiting appeal was made, are to be flung out simply for the purpose of the further extension of the deer forests.
I would once more commend a consideration of the Report which has just been presented. It is not a report from people who are unduly antagonistic to the development of deer forests. With one exception, every Member of the Committee may be described as a representative of the landlord interests——

The CHAIRMAN: T think the hon. Gentleman is going rather beyond the scope of the Resolution. It is quite in order to argue that money should be spent in settlement here, but this is not the time to discuss this Report.

Mr. RAFFAN: I am much obliged to you, Sir. I was led to go farther than I intended by the interruptions to which I was subjected. I really rose for the purpose of entering a caveat now, so that when in Committee we who feel that there is a lack of proportion in the Government policy are compelled to move Amendments, we shall not be met by the statement that we were coming there and stating for the first time objections which should have been made here and now. I do not propose to divide against the Resolution, but I wish to make it clear that there is a considerable body of opinion in the country, which has its representatives in this House, which feels that this provision should not be made when, at the same time, no provision is made for the further settlement of the people in the Highlands of Scotland.

Mr. HALLS: I wish to associate myself with the protest which has been made by the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. N. Maclean). We favour any measures to help the ex-service men and women, but the protest which has been raised is largely due to the fact that the Government have not shown an equal anxiety to give the men who prefer to remain in England an opportunity to remain here, and I share the views of those who say that if the Government were prepared to spend the same amount of money in this country, they could find suitable employment for a good many thousands of ex-service men. I am not speaking without my book. I happen to have been associated with the land all my life. I was brought up on the land, and therefore I know what an agricultural occupation means, and I want to remind the Committee that if these men are to go out to the Colonics, they must be men who, at any rate, have had some little experience already of agriculture, if they are to succeed, for it is no good sending industrial workers out. At least, I am certain you are not prepared to spend enough money on giving them sufficient training or keeping them for a sufficient period until they are at least able to earn their own living on the land, so that if it is to be the men who already have had something to do with agriculture, then, in my opinion, you are going to induce men to go from this country who would be better kept here. I do not know much about Scotland,
therefore I will not fall out with hon. Members with regard to the bogs or the rocks or whatever Scotland consists of, but I know my England perhaps as well as the next Member of this House, and I am quite satisfied that if this Government cared to tackle the question of making provision for the ex-service men who know anything about agriculture, the bulk of those men could be absorbed in this country, and the land could be used to produce food, and then the men would begin to purchase the utensils which the other men in industrial occupations are waiting to make. If the Government had made a real, earnest attempt at home to settle the men who preferred to remain here on the land, I am certain they would not have met with the same amount of opposition to their present proposals. I recently found a lot of ex-service men in Cambridgeshire who had been put on the land by the County Council. I was told that the land, prior to being purchased for the purpose of getting these men on the land, had been let to farmers at £1 an acre, but the price that had to be paid for the land was so high that these men were being charged at the rate of £4 an acre for it. I think it would have been good business for this Government to have sunk a few hundred thousand pounds in purchasing land for these men to work in this country.
12 M.
I have one little grumble to make to the hon. Gentleman in charge of this Bill. One of my constituents wrote a while ago complaining that he went to Canada and remained out there for 18 months. It was prior to the relief that was given, but when he learned that the passage was being paid both ways he made application, and the money was sent. The man was out there altogether for 18 months, for 12 months of which time he could not find work, so that he was only in work for six months. He then had occupation offered him back here in his own town, and when he intimated to the authorities that he was returning, the money that had been sent to him for his fare there and back was disallowed. The man came home again and found employment. In my opinion, that was rather a mean advantage to take of a man who had made an honest attempt to get employment in the Colonies! There are other cases of the kind that the Department might well look into: and
they can very well afford to be generous to men like this. In any case of doubt the men ought to have the benefit of it. There may be bitterness engendered in Debate, but I believe that in every quarter of the House, whatever our views may have been about the War, that in regard to the ex-service men there is an earnest desire to do the best for them—for they did the best they could for the country, The Government have preferred to spend £3,000,000 to send these men to the Colonies, though they might have spent something to enable those men who wished to do so to stay at home. It was that attitude that has aroused the protest from these benches. It should be remembered that there are men, young and middle-aged, who served in the War, and who have got all sorts of ties in this old country, and for many reasons they would have preferred to stay at home. Perhaps they have been driven out by poverty? I do not know that there is a man here who would deny the perfect moral right that those who served the country and who wish to remain here as citizens and work in agriculture or industry should not be allowed to do so. They have home ties, and all their feelings are towards their friends and relatives.
They may—and do—desire to live in the Mother Country. They ought to be free to choose. This they are not able to do to-day, seeing they are without pensions and without employment; this has really caused them to go away. They would not have gone if there was the same opportunity here that you are affording them in the Colonies. I ask those in charge of the Bill to satisfy the Committee that there is an earnest desire to, if possible, keep these men in this country and if they so desire. If the landed interest in this and the other House were not so strongly entrenched, there would doubtless be a better opportunity for these men.

Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

It being after half-past Eleven of the Clock upon Wednesday evening, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Seven minutes after Twelve o'clock.